


X-Men: A Retelling

by A_Mightily_Large_Duck



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Machine singularity, Muir Island, Oxford University - Freeform, Rachel is Jean's sister now, Weapon X - Freeform, Yes you are reading the ship tags correctly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-10-21 03:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20686760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Mightily_Large_Duck/pseuds/A_Mightily_Large_Duck
Summary: Hi! I'm a duck of not insignificant size. I like writing. This is an entirely new Marvel based universe, which I am using to tell a new story about the X-Men. There will be blood. There will be romance. There will be all sorts of things! Come and have a read.





	1. Prologue

Hidden in the tundra north of the Canadian Rockies, deep underground in a structure of steel and glass, a woman was giving birth. The screams echoed through the facility as doctors scurried around her, each desperately worried about the wriggling infant that was wailing its way out of her womb.  
A man stood back from the surgical table, sweat beading on his forehead. His sandy hair was swept behind his ears, and he had to keep removing his glasses to wipe the moisture from the lenses. Metallic sliding doors opened behind him with a pneumatic screech, and he was approached by another man, bald, tall, a grey beard covering the lower portion of his face. "Ah, sir, there you are," the first man said, fear and anxiety palpable in his voice. "She's, ah, in labour."  
"I can see that," replied his compatriot. "Is the child safe?"  
"From what we can tell," the first man stuttered. "But please, Mr Sutter, you have to understand that even though it's ok now doesn't mean it won't-"  
"I know," Sutter barked. "Haemophilia, arthritis, a weakened immune system. I'm familiar with the father's illnesses." He turned to look at his companion. "Listen to me closely, Henry. You are going to do everything in your power to help it overcome those issues, do I make myself clear?"  
Henry took a step back. "Sir, I understand that you're desperate, but it isn't that simple! There are ways to force out mutations, but none of them are easy, or guaranteed to work! They're as like to kill it as to empower it!"  
"I don't care, Henry," Sutter growled. The woman had ceased her screaming now. Instead, she panted, looking down at the child that a doctor was looking over critically. "That thing is worth millions, and with the correct guidance it could make us billions more. I shall repeat, do I make myself clear?"  
Henry gulped. "Yes, sir," he mumbled. The woman on the bed was reaching for her child, and the doctor reluctantly passed it to her. Sutter smiled to himself and left, and Henry hurried to the woman's side.  
"So?" He asked sharply, trying to regain some composure. "The birth was successful. Sarah, if you could please give the asset to a guard? We don't have a moment to lose."  
Sarah Kinney shrank back, clutching the baby closer to her chest. "One moment," she snapped tersely. "I'd like some time with her first."  
Henry stared at her for a moment, then placed his head in his hands and groaned. "You said bearing the subject yourself wouldn't be an issue," he said hollowly.  
"It won't," Sarah quickly assured him. "I'd just like to spend a little longer with her before… we start work."  
Henry paused. "Her?"  
"Yes. I told you, some DNA was damaged. I had to supplement it with my own." She looked down at the infant, which was still screaming bloody murder.  
"You mean you potentially compromised its entire genome?" Henry asked, aghast.  
"No," Sarah snapped. "She'll function perfectly. Just wait."  
Henry held his hands out, and Sarah reluctantly handed over the baby. "Well," he said, filled with sudden regret as his hands were coated in amniotic fluid. "I suppose that will have to do." He looked down at the weapon. "Isn't that right, X-23?"


	2. Chapter 1, Innocence Lost

_Eight years later._  
Sarah sat cross legged in the glass cell, as much a prisoner as the silent girl beside her. X-23 was calm today. She was curled up beside Sarah, who was holding a copy of 'The Art of War', by Sun Tzu, which she was pretending to read to the little girl. Inside, she had hidden a few pages of paper, on which she had printed the fairy tale 'Pinnochio'. X-23 was listening, head resting on Sarah's shoulder and making happy noises along to the story. It didn't matter that she didn't know what a cricket was, and had probably never seen anything made of wood. Pinnochio was her favourite. She had enjoyed Rapunzel, and even smiled at Little Red Riding Hood, but Pinnochio was always her favourite. Sarah could tell. It didn't matter that she only heard her vocalise words once or twice a day, she could always tell. Occasionally, a guard would patrol past the cell, and Sarah would make X-23 sit up and look alert while Sarah read aloud something profound sounding from the book underneath.  
Sarah patted X-23's hair. She had, after much begging and pleading, convinced Sutter to allow her to cut it herself, and now it hung loose around her shoulders instead of being cropped close to her head, as her previous barber had insisted on cutting it. On days when most of the guards were off sick, or on Christmas, Sarah would sneak hair clips and bands into the cell, and do X-23's hair up in a bun and show her in the mirror. She liked the days when Sarah did that. Once, Sarah had managed to sneak her phone in, and X-23 had spent an afternoon wide eyed and gawking with earphones plugged in as she made her way through Queen's entire discography. Sutter had nearly found out about that one, and Sarah had had to throw her phone away to keep the transgression covered up. X-23 had once asked why she didn't try to sneak things in more, and Sarah, unable to lie and unwilling to tell the truth, had just broken down into tears and hugged her until they were both crying, and Sarah was escorted out.  
She reached the end of the story and put down the book. "It's a big day," she whispered. X-23 looked at her blankly. Sarah smiled, then lost heart and stopped smiling. "I won't lie to you, Twenty-Three... it's going to hurt."  
X-23 blinked in surprise, and cocked her head. "I don't want them to do it. But they're going to hurt you. To make you...better." She patted her hair again. "You know how you have to go to the doctor whenever you cut yourself? And it hurts when you bend your back too much?" X-23 nodded. "Well, you won't have to worry about any of that anymore." Sarah wiped a tear from her eye. "Be strong for me, ok?"  
X-23 blinked again. "Will they take you away?" She said in her tiny, frail voice.  
Sarah vehometly shook her head. "No. No, Twenty-Three, I wouldn't let them." The girl smiled, and hugged her. Sarah tried not to cry.  
Just then, there was a hard rapping at the door. "Kinney!" Sutter's angry voice bellowed. "It's time!"  
"Alright!" Sarah yelled.  
"Be strong, Twenty-Three," she whispered. "Make me proud." She stood up, and opened the cell door. An armed guard rushed in, grabbed the little girl roughly by the shoulders, and X-23 was frog marched away into the next terrible stage of her life.

Sarah watched from behind the one way glass on the wall of the sterile white operating theatre as X-23 was loaded into a horrible metallic tube that she knew Henry Callahan had designed specifically for this purpose. The girl looked pale and frightened, just like she always did when being handled by the guards. The tube was sealed around her, and X-23's terrified face became visible from the small glass window that afforded her her only view outside the metal contraption. A elderly Japanese man stood beside Sarah, a sad look in his eyes. "I had hoped to save her before now," he said sadly, watching the spectacle unfold. "Have the Hand eradicate any sign of this awful place, and get you and her to her father. But alas, I failed. The Hand will not speak to me."  
Sarah sighed glumly. "It's too much," she murmured. "She's eight. She should be playing with toys and wearing sparkly clothes with unicorns and rainbows on them." She turned to the man. Muramoto Toyoharu was X-23's martial arts instructor, and the only person besides Sarah who routinely showed the girl any kindness. He was less of a prisoner than Sarah was, but hadn't been back to Japan in four years, and hadn't seen his family in longer. He acknowledged the pointlessness of trying to teach an arthritic eight year old martial arts, and had spent more time trying to teach her Japanese than fighting. To both his and Sarah's astonishment, this had worked, and despite Sutter's best efforts to keep X-23 as mute as possible the girl had grown up bilingual. Fascinated by this development, Sarah had managed to sneak X-23 a French dictionary and guide to grammar, and by the time she was six was speaking three languages. This had been harder to hide from Sutter, who had yelled at Sarah for two hours after X-23 had called him 'un branleur' one day. Sarah had been extremely proud.  
"What exactly does the cylinder do?" Muramoto asked. "And do I want to know the answer?"  
"It filters out oxygen," Sarah said blankly. "And at the same time increases air pressure and temperature." She shrugged. "It tortures her."  
"Jaakuna yarō," Muramoto spat. "The poor girl."  
Sarah looked away as the screaming started. Loud, pained, resentful screams filled the room, occasionally mixed in with pleas for it to stop. Sarah bit her lip as the tears rolled freely down her cheeks. _ It's her birthday, _ she thought. _Would a cake be too much to ask?_  
The minutes she stood like that dragged by, X-23's screaming echoing over loudspeaker and pounding its way into Sarah's skull. It was shrill and tortured and empty, and she could sometimes hear her own name in the wailing, begging for her or Muramoto to save her. Sometimes she would glance at the door, but the guards all carried guns, and she had been ordered on pain of death not to interfere.  
When the screams stopped, they did so gradually. The volume faded, reducing itself to plaintive sobs. A hiss of escaping gas emanated from the cylinder, and Sarah looked up in time to see X-23 stumble out onto the floor, gasping for air and coated in sweat. Henry Callahan hurried toward the door, but paused as he caught Sarah glaring at him through tear reddened eyes. "Do you see now?" She growled. "Do you finally understand what you're doing to her? That she's just a child, and that you'll have nothing left if you carry on like this?"  
Muramoto placed a hand on Sarah's shoulder. "Sarah," he said softly. "Pick your battles."  
Henry shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, biting his lip. "You know," he said sheepishly. "She shouldn't have been able to survive that. It worked."  
Sarah's blood turned ice cold. She looked sharply up at X-23, lying gasping on the steel floor. She saw her look up and the nearest guard, whose rifle was trained on her brow. She saw something she had never seen before in X-23's deep green eyes. Something fierce.  
' Snikt'.  
Two bone blades broke the skin of X-23's right knuckles. She moved fluidly, more fluidly than she ever had with Muramoto, and in one swift motion the claws were buried in the thigh of the guard before her. He screamed, unthinking releasing a volley of rounds into X-23's torso. She fell away, eyes wide, staring at the red splatter on her white hospital gown. Sarah screamed then, and ignoring the guards sprinted into the chamber. She rolled X-23 over and ripped open the front of the gown, eyes foggy with tears and throat clogged as she saw the bullet wounds.  
'Plink' .  
A lump of lead was expelled from X-23's stomach. Then another. And another. Sarah blinked back her tears, and watched, astonished, and the red holes in X-23's belly and chest began to close of their own accord. The bone claws retracted into her hands, and the wounds they left in her knuckles slid shut almost immediately. "Oh," Sarah breathed. "Oh, my sweet girl." She turned back to the guard, blood still pouring out of his leg. "Twenty-Three, what have you done?"

_Four months later._  
X-23 sat alone in her cell, meditating. Sarah watched her from outside, trying to make out her face from behind the veil of hair that she had pulled in front of it. The girl had changed since her experience in the cylinder. Her training with Muramoto had picked up the pace rapidly, and she had already mastered six of the martial arts that she had beforehand taken months to learn even the basics of, to the point at which Muramoto was unable to best her at any of them. She had become quieter too. Sarah would sometimes go into her cell only for X-23 to just shake her head, and Sarah to leave again, feeling dejected. One day when she had been in a more open mood, and the guards had been particularly lazy, she had confided in Sarah that everything was louder, smellier, and brighter now, and that it scared her. Sarah had tried to explain that this was because her senses had been heightened by her mutations, but X-23 was still too young to understand what that meant.  
Sutter had brought in a firearms instructor, an ex-military man with no sense of humour and a bad temper. He had shouted at X-23 for half an hour before handing her a pistol, with which she had demonstrated immense skill right from the word go. X-23 was already a better marksman than any of the facility's security detail. Sarah and Muramoto had never got on with the instructor, and many angry glances had been exchanged between them as X-23 had been taken to and from her training.  
But the instructor was nothing compared to Kimura. Not long after X-23's mutations had been forced to surface early, the doctor's had dragged her away, kicking and screaming, and strapped her to a surgical table. There, they had ripped open her arms and feet, and tore her claws out of her. She had lain on the table, stricken and screaming, while the surgeons and engineers carefully produced replicas made of adamantium, cutting edges sharpened to points so delicate that if they had been made of anything else they would have snapped under the slightest strain. They tore her arms and feet open again, pulled out and discarded the bone claws that had grown to replace those that had already been removed, and replaced them with the adamantium blades. The skin had closed over the top, and when X-23 unsheathed her claws in anger, it was adamantium that had broken the skin.  
X-23's handlers quickly realised how much of a mistake this had been when they discovered that strikes that ordinarily wouldn't have pierced their body armour were suddenly causing fatal bleeding, and the facility had scrambled to find a solution. They found it in Kimura Al-Jamil, an ex-SHIELD agent on trial for murder. They had kidnapped her from her cell and explained what they needed to do to her, and what they needed her to do. She had accepted, and been given a fake name and identity. The facility had somehow discovered a method of making a person's skin totally impenetrable, and soon Kimura had replaced all of X-23's handlers. All, that is, except for Sarah, who was still required to keep X-23 calm.  
Kimura was a nightmare. She was a bully, and beat X-23 almost constantly, never needing to fear reprimandation due to X-23's healing factor. She had threatened Sarah and Muramoto on numerous occasions, and once knocked out several of X-23's teeth in full view of both of them "by way of punishing the little brat". Sarah had appealed to Sutter eight times now to have Kimura removed from the program, and been met with stony silence each time.  
Sarah tapped the glass. X-23 glanced up at her, and nodded for her to come in. Relieved, Sarah pushed inside and sat down on the floor opposite her. "Can I touch you?" She whispered. X-23 nodded. Sarah pulled a plastic comb from her pocket, and gently started to run it through X-23's hair. It could get in such a mess during her sessions with Muramoto. X-23 smiled faintly. Sarah smiled back. "How are you feeling?"  
X-23 shrugged. Sarah nodded. "I see. Do you want me to read to you?" X-23 nodded vigorously. "Alright," Sarah laughed. She reached into her bag and retrieved the book, and read to the girl, who closed her eyes, occasionally smiling or frowning as the story progressed. Sutter was no longer interested in the content of what Sarah read her, only that they met their quota of contact time each week. Now that X-23 was almost ready for use in combat operations, he was accelerating the timeline at which they were working. Sarah had requested that he leave it be, but had as usual been ignored.  
Sarah had not been reading long when a loud rapping at the glass of the cell caught her attention. She glanced up, annoyed, to see Henry Callahan squinting through the window. "Hang on," she said the X-23, and stood up to face him, arms folded. "Yes, Callahan?"  
"What are you reading?" He asked.  
She showed him the book that she had stashed a few chapters of Harry Potter into. A biography of Julius Caesar. "I'm teaching her about military strategy. Why?"  
"It didn't sound like military strategy," Callahan retorted, more sharply than Sarah thought was strictly necessary.  
"What else would it be?" Sarah asked, exasperated. Eight years of being cooped up underground with this man had worn on her a long time ago. "And why is it any of your business? You're not a handler. Now shoo. She's getting restless." This much was true, X-23 was rocking back and forth, glaring at Callahan through the glass. He gulped, and hurried on his way.  
"I don't like him," the child said sullenly. It was a sentiment she had expressed many times, and one that Sarah wholeheartedly agreed with.  
"Neither do I," she sighed, sitting back down and going back to the story.  
"Sarah?"  
She looked up, surprised. X-23 didn't call people by name much. "Yes, Twenty-Three?"  
"Sometimes in the books there are people who have pets, and they keep them in cages and play with them." Sarah felt her heart sink. She had known that this was inevitable. "Am I your pet?"  
"No." Sarah closed the book. She leaned closer to her. "Listen to me, Twenty-Three. You are no one's pet. You are no one's slave. Ok? You don't have to do what they tell you. You're a real person, a real girl. You're... you're my daughter." She pulled her in and hugged her. X-23 flailed for a moment, but leaned into the embrace and returned the hug. "And I love you. And I promise that I'll find a way to get you out of here, alright?"  
X-23 nodded against her shoulder and said, in the tiniest voice, "Thank you".  
Sarah pulled away from her and adjusted the bun of her hair. She adjusted her child's black hair, allowing it to cascade down her back, and looked deep into those dark eyes. That was a feature that came from her. X-23 looked overwhelmingly like her father, but she had Sarah's eyes. "Remember. They can't control you if you don't want them to."

"Afternoon, Kinney."  
Sarah closed her eyes and pursed her lips. She put down the kettle and mug, and turned to face the owner of the voice. In the kitchen door stood Kimura, arms crossed, an arrogant grin plastered across her face. "Kimura," she said, trying not to let her dispassion for the woman show too plainly. "Would you like some coffee?"  
Kimura made her way into the room, languidly taking in the kitchen's interior as she did. Sarah watched her warily. "You know, Kinney," she continued. "I always did wonder about you." She continued stalking the room, occasionally glancing at Sarah as she spoke. "Your role here makes no sense. You clearly despise everybody here. You hate what has happened to your little pet. And yet...you _ volunteered _ to be X-23's surrogate. Why would a sane individual ever do such a ridiculous thing?"  
Sarah sipped at her coffee, glared at Kimura, and headed for the door, only to have her escape blocked. Kimura raised an eyebrow, smirk still plastered across her face. If it weren't for the fact that she could probably kill her from where she stood in under a second, Sarah would probably have slapped her, but thought better of it. "I take it you hadn't heard of me before coming here, then?" She asked cooly.  
"No." Kimura frowned. "Why? Are you famous?"  
"In certain circles," Sarah affirmed. "I was on the front cover of Time Magazine once." Kimura cocked her head, unable to hide her interest. "I'm a scientist, or at least I was. A geneticist. I predicted the existence of the X-gene two years before Department K released evidence of its existence to the civilian population, and five years before the first confirmed reports of mutants."  
Kimura leaned back, threatening posture gone. "How the hell did you end up here?" She asked. "Sounds like you had a nice cushy career all lined up for you."  
Sarah laughed hollowly. "I was contacted," she continued. "Offered exactly that. A nice cushy job, and in my home country. I arrived, and learned all about this place." She gestured randomly. "I learned about the previous Weapon X models. That the Weapon X program was having difficulty with their newer model. I…" She broke off and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I wanted to know more. About the project. So I stayed, and when I had fixed the genetic code of the new clone they fired me on the spot. So I suggested that I be the surrogate and a handler, and they agreed to that." She took another sip of coffee. "And while I was pregnant, of course, I learned exactly what they were going to do with her."  
Kimura laughed. "What, did you think they were going to be making a superhero?" She cackled.  
"Yes. The Weapon X program is a derivation of the Weapon Plus program. The one that made Captain America." She shook her head. "By that point, it was too late. X-23 was a success." She paused, and took a large gulp of coffee while Kimura prepared to gloat. "I did find out that her father was still alive, though."  
As Kimura's face turned from triumphant, to confused, to suddenly fearful, Sarah pushed past her and back towards X-23's cell. She whirled. "She killed Muramoto!" She shouted. Sarah froze. She turned around herself.  
"What did you say?"  
"They tested something new this morning. A chemical or something, I don't know. Makes her mad enough to kill anyone." She burst out laughing again, seeing Sarah's horrified face. "Oh, yeah. Your precious little pet is a murderer."

Sarah ran through the facility, footsteps echoing loudly through the dingy metal corridors. Her ears were ringing. She could taste bile. Kimura was messing with her. She had to be. There was no way that X-23 could have done that. She still had things to learn from Muramoto. Sutter wouldn't do this, not now. He was still an asset to them.  
She screeched to a halt in the dojo, and her eyes widened in total shock. X-23 knelt in the middle of the floor, adamantium claws unsheathed, in a growing pool of blood. Before her lay Muramoto, flat on his back, blood leaking from an open wound in his side and quite dead.  
"X-23?" Sarah called. The girl looked up at her, eyes wild and afraid. "Oh, my god… come here Twenty-Three."  
X-23 ran to her, panting ragged breaths. Sarah threw her arms around her, feeling her erratic heartbeat. "I'm sorry," X-23 gasped. "I was so angry-"  
"I know," Sarah said soothingly. "I know. We're going to leave now. I'm taking you back to your cell, ok? Try to stay calm for me. It's alright, Twenty-Three. It's ok."  
X-23 shook her head, still buried in Sarah's shoulder. "They made me do it anyway," she whined. "They made me do it anyway. They made me do it anyway."  
"Hush." Sarah stood up, taking her by the hand and pulling her towards the cell. "Don't worry about that. It's alright, Twenty-Three. It's alright. We'll be ok, I promise. We'll be ok."

_One year later._  
Arthur Morrison, born in Austin Texas, had reached his peak. He was, despite all odds, favoured in the running for the President of the United States of America. People were flying his merchandise outside their windows, and the country was abuzz with excitement over the upcoming election. Today, a crowd had gathered in Washington DC to listen as Arthur read aloud a prepared speech, swelled on pride and the nation's approval. The sun shone brightly, a light breeze blew, and birds were singing in the trees. A few banners amidst the throng voiced dissent, but they were easily ignored amongst the droves of supporters.  
A few children were gathered towards the end of the prepared stage, most of whom were suffering from some life threatening illness or another. Arthur's PR team had thought it a good idea to show Arthur speaking to them for a few seconds to impress the crowds, and as he walked up onto stage, beaming and waving to the spectators, Arthur bent down and exchanged a few words with each of them. The closest to the stage, a girl wearing thick glasses and sporting black hair tied in pigtails, looked up at him plaintively. A little awkwardly, he patted her head. "How are you lass?" He asked, not knowing exactly what to say. Behind the glasses, X-23 blinked, and buried her claws in Arthur's chest.  
Nobody reacted until the girl was off the scene. People searched for her to no avail, important people in important looking suits made important sounding speeches about terrorism, and Captain America filed a document in his desk under the tab 'Weapon X'.

Sarah was at her wits' end. She had kicked and screamed through every stage of the preparation process, she had tried to convince X-23 to run, and she had done her best to sabotage communications to and from the facility. It had done little practical good, but helped her conscience.  
Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of New York crime, had found Sutter's delicately encrypted advertisement. He had been intrigued by its content, and for a large sum of money purchased the facility's services. Within the week, Arthur Morrison was dead, and Sutter's bank account was significantly fatter.  
Sarah and X-23 were alone in the cell. Since Muramoto's death, X-23 was the only person Sarah could bear to be around. Today, the girl was utterly silent, rocking slightly and staring into the middle distance. They hadn't even bothered to remove the bomb collar when she had returned from the assassination, and the LED on its side winked mockingly at Sarah, who staunchly ignored it.  
Sarah hadn't brought a book, or any hair supplies, or anything else today. She was just sitting with X-23, arms folded, murder in her eyes. X-23 continued to rock. Her hair was still in pigtails. Wordlessly, Sarah reached over and started to undo them. X-23 flinched initially at the contact, but gave no further resistance.  
"Sorry," she muttered.  
Sarah sighed. "It's ok," she said wearily. "I'm not mad. This wasn't your choice."  
"What if they make me do it again?"  
Sarah shrugged. "We'll see about that when it happens, Twenty-Three."

In the next five years, X-23 killed ninety-six people. Some, like Morrison, were politicians. Some were mobsters. A sparing few, for whom an extortionate sum was always demanded, were superheroes. The facility was well concealed enough that none of the police departments or intelligence agencies searching high and low for the source of the killings were able to locate it.  
By the time of X-23's thirteenth birthday, she was the source of a great deal of news coverage, paranoia, and contempt. SHIELD issued a statement, reassuring the public that they were doing everything in their power to locate the killer, even though all their leads had gone cold. Security at public events was tripled.  
Sutter and Henry Callahan were soon rolling in money. Sarah had politely declined the blood money, and her share had gone to Kimura.

Sarah was sitting at her desk, numbly filling out some paperwork. She was drained, and had heavy bags under her eyes. Her pen ran out of ink, and she stated at it blankly for a few seconds before picking up a second one. Her contact time with X-23 had been reduced significantly, and the sessions she now had with her were quieter and more filled with tears. It was very clear that X-23 didn't want to be doing what she was made to. She had never said as much, but she would curl up in a little ball and cry once every assignment was up.  
Sarah finished her paperwork and sat back in her chair, too tired to do anything else. She was drained. She had tried to help X-23, and for her efforts she had been beaten back and made totally alone.  
A knock on her door. "Come in," she called, eyes not moving. Sutter strode in, immaculate in his new suit, beaming ear to ear.  
"Kinney," he drawled.   
"Sutter," she growled.  
He took the seat opposite her. "Listen, Sarah," he said, hands folded in his lap. "You've been an extremely useful asset throughout this entire project, and we're all very grateful for your assistance in all matters you've attended to." He sighed deeply. “However, Sarah, with the current progression of this project, and our plans for the near future, we believe that your input is no longer required.”  
Sarah sat back, stunned. “I’m sorry?” She asked, voice low.  
“We don’t need you anymore, Sarah. You are being made redundant.”  
“But-” Sarah blinked slowly. “Don’t you need my help? To keep X-23 happy and contained?”  
Sutter smiled without humour. “X-23 is also no longer required. We’re making more clones. X-24 through X-35, and we’ve found others willing to act as surrogates and handlers, with fewer rebellious tendencies than you have exhibited. X-23 is to be terminated via carbonite bullet a week tomorrow.” He gave her the same empty smile. “I’m deeply sorry about all this.”  
He waited for Sarah to make a response, and when she didn’t simply shrugged and left. Sarah stared at the door for several seconds. Then, quietly and passionately, she started to cry.  
It was at this point that Sarah decided that she had really had enough. She had given thirteen years of her life to care for X-23, and they were just throwing both of them away like so much garbage.  
So, rage filling her, Sarah hatched her plan. The Weapon X facility contained a large quantity of explosives, and Sarah had discovered over the thirteen years that they were not kept track of as well as Sutter might like. She had also found that a number of the guards were themselves gamma level mutants, and Sarah for a fact knew that all mutants shared a strong allergy to peanuts. Not to mention that they all drank a sizable quantity of coffee each day, and it would be absolutely no issue for Sarah to sneak some peanut oil into their mugs.  
All this discovered and accounted for, Sarah initiated her plans.

X-23 looked up as Sarah walked into her cell. She managed a weak smile, and Sarah gave her one back. She was bored. Come to think of it, she was always bored, but now more than ever. It had been many weeks since she had been made to do any missions or exercises, and her restlessness was growing. Sarah checked behind her shoulder for something, then winked at X-23. She crouched, and spent several seconds whispering into her ear. X-23’s eyes widened. She gasped. Finally, she nodded.  
Leaving the cell, Sarah was met with Callahan. Noticing her, he grinned and stepped forward. “One last chat with your little pet, huh?” He gloated. “God, I’m glad I’m not you.”  
“Shut up,” Sarah growled, trying to push past him.  
To her horror, Callahan blocked her way, still grinning. “Too squeamish to watch them do it, huh?”  
Sarah glared at him. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to be there. To pass moral judgement on every piece of shit in this bunker, if nothing else.”  
“Aw,” Callahan smirked. He reached up and fondled a lock of her hair, only to have her pull away from him in disgust.  
“You’re revolting,” she spat, and shoved him aside as she stormed to the exit. Callahan laughed.  
“We’ll see who gets the last laugh, Kinney!” He cackled. “We’ll see!”  
Sarah gritted her teeth and carried on. She checked her watch, heart already beginning to pound. She checked her pockets and made sure that everything was where it was supposed to be. She took the elevator back to the surface, something she had been doing with reduced frequency of late, for what she hoped would be the final time.

_Three hours later._  
Someone tapped on the glass of the cell. X-23 looked up blankly to see Callahan looking in. She bared her teeth at him. Of all of them, he was her least favourite. Some of them simply beat her, but it was Callahan who stabbed her and ripped her open and experimented on her and laughed and laughed as he did it and called her freak all the while. She balled a fist at her side.  
Outside, Callahan had lost interest and was talking to someone who she couldn’t see. She sniffed the air, and smelled one of the guards. All the mutant ones, the really dangerous ones, were absent today. That was good. She didn’t want this to be difficult, either her or Sarah.  
The latch to the door was undone. A guard walked in, carrying a rifle, accompanied by Callahan. “X-23,” he said, voice empty and sickly sweet. “We need to perform a checkup on you. Could you come with us, please?” X-23 glared at him and nodded. “Wonderful. This way.”  
He turned his back. X-23 got up. The guard beckoned. X-23 unsheathed her claws. The guard’s eyes widened. He raised his rifle. X-23 shot forward, and buried her claws in his chest. He gurgled and dropped down. Callahan whirled. X-23 moved again, and slashed his hamstrings. He dropped onto the floor face first, smashing his nose. X-23 checked the corridor, and finding no one present crouched down by Callahan, observing him. He looked up at her, fear plain on his face. “Twenty-Three?” He stammered. “Please, I was only-”  
X-23 retracted her claws and punched him squarely on the already ruined nose. He sobbed in agony, and X-23 felt not a shred of pity.  
She stood up and kicked him in the belly. He exhaled sharply, and she kicked him again, breaking a rib. She kicked and kicked and kicked, until he was crying and begging. “You’re a freak,” she said with spite, spitting on him. She unsheathed her foot claw, and placed it on his temple.  
“Please,” he begged.  
“No.” She pushed down, and he didn’t beg anymore.  
She bent down and took his watch from his wrist, strapping it onto her own, and took off running. She encountered another guard, who managed to shout a word of surprise before she silenced him with a claw through his gullet. She checked the watch. Sarah had given her fifteen minutes after they came into her cell until the explosives went off, which she had already used four of. Ideally, she be out five before the detonation. Fortunately, Sutter’s office was on the way out.  
For the first time in her life, she was filled with a sense of elation. When Sarah, her mother had promised to get her away from here, she hadn’t believed it, but now here she was, about to break free, about to-  
An alarm sounded. The lights went out. Doors began slamming all around her. She whirled, eyes wide. Someone must have found the corpses. She started running again, finding that the door at the end of the corridor was deadlocked shut. She unsheathed her claws and cut her way through it, but she was wasting too much time already. She ran past several guards, killing each as she came to them, panting as she was overwhelmed by terror and adrenaline. She rounded a corridor and saw the elevator, standing open. She ran, slamming into its back wall, gasping for breath. She looked around, and jammed the button that her mother had told her to with her thumb.  
As the doors closed, she heard heavy footfalls. “Wait!” A voice boomed. She looked up in surprise, and Sutter burst into the elevator, entirely out of breath. He looked over at her, and his face turned to horror. She cocked her head, and killed him as painfully as she knew how.  
The elevator rolled on upward, and X-23 started to smile. She checked the watch, and her eyes widened. Panicked, she found a foothold on one of the walls, and cut a hole in the roof of the elevator large enough to crawl through. She pulled herself out and steadied herself on the rising roof. She waited, heart pounding, and when she heard the detonation behind her she launched herself upwards, catching the very bottom of the elevator door. She hauled herself up, gasping at the fresh air. In the snow before her was Sarah, who was practically weeping with relief.  
The blast reached X-23, and she was violently flung from the shaft, landing at Sarah’s feet. The pain was exquisite, but one thing shot through it. A scent. One she had smelled many times before. It was on Sarah, and panic and rage overcame her, and she unsheathed her claws, and swung at Sarah, teeth bared, snarling, and a strong hand grabbed her wrist and pushed her back down.  
She writhed for a few seconds, gnashing her teeth, howling and screaming. She roared, trying to break free, but the grip was strong. She could hear Sarah screaming, and she focused on those screams and pulled herself out of the rage.  
She looked up, to see the old army man who had taught her to shoot. She blinked. “I’m going to kill you,” she told him calmly.  
He laughed, and a twinkle she hadn’t seen before was in his eye. “I wouldn’t recommend that,” he chuckled. “My name is Shatterstar. I work with your father.”  
X-23 froze. “My dad?”  
“Yes. His name is Logan, and he’s very much looking forward to meeting you.” He pulled her to her feet. “I have a jeep. We need to move, quickly.” He turned to Sarah, who was writhing in the snow, which was red with her blood. He bent down and pulled her up too, and X-23 gasped to see two deep gashes across her face.  
“Mom…” she whispered. “I’m so-”  
Sarah looked up at her, and seemed to calm down. “Laura,” she said, voice brimming with happiness. “We’re alive.”  
X-23 frowned. “Who is Laura?”  
Sarah smiled. “You are, Laura. That’s your name.”  
Laura thought about this for a moment, and nodded. “Laura,” she said. “I am Laura.” A bullet tore past her.  
“Oh, shit,” Shatterstar muttered. “We have to go.” He picked up Sarah, who yelled in surprise, and took off running, Laura following. For the first time, she took in her surroundings. All around her was a thick blanket of snow, and in the direction they ran stood a forest of pine trees, blowing in the breeze. A road cut through the forest, at the end of which stood a jeep.  
Shatterstar reached the jeep and bundled into the driver’s seat, Sarah taking the passenger seat. Laura climbed into the back, and the jeep lurched forward. Behind them were the sounds of pursuit. Guns fired, dogs barked, and with a lurch Laura recognised Kimura’s voice shouting orders.  
“Who are you?” Sarah asked, addressing Shatterstar.  
“A mutant,” he replied. “I work with Logan.”  
“But how did you know what was going on here?”  
Shatterstar sucked in air through his teeth. “That is a very long story, and one that I don’t think I quite have the authority to tell. Besides-” He was cut off as a bullet tore through his head. Sarah screamed, and Laura jumped in shock. The jeep skidded to a halt and almost toppled over. The sounds of chase drew closer.  
“No…” Sarah moaned, burying her head in her hands. “Not after all this…”  
Laura turned around and looked in fear out the rear window. She saw other jeeps nearing, heard Kimura laughing, and then…  
Something dropped from the sky. They were a person, so far as she could tell, and made entirely from metal, wearing a padded blue and yellow outfit. They were clearly a man, and utterly huge. Laura blinked in surprise. The other jeeps screeched to a halt. “Now,” said the man. His accent was Russian, and he did not sound pleased. “You’re probably wondering what exactly is going on here.” A round of gunfire echoed out, and Laura watched, wide eyed, as it sparked off the man’s head. “Well, looks like you’ll never find out.”  
He strode forward at pace, quickly catching up to the nearest jeep. Laura’s eyes widened as he effortlessly picked it up and hurled it at another, before barrelling through the rest, smashing and tearing, quite unhindered by the rain of gunfire that peppered him.  
Soon, the jeeps were in full retreat, Kimura shouting orders in a noticeably higher tone than before. The man dusted off his hands with an audible clanging sound, and strolled back to where Laura and Sarah hid in their own jeep. As he did, his skin seemed to shimmer as he morphed from metal to flesh and bone. He had close shaven brown hair, bright blue eyes, and kindly features. He peered in, and was visibly saddened by the sight of Shatterstar’s dead body.  
He looked up and smiled at Sarah and Laura. “He was a good man,” he said sadly. “A shame that that had to happen.”  
“Who are you?” Sarah asked, voice quavering.  
“I’m sorry, that was very rude of me," the man spluttered. "Where are my manners? My name is Piotr Rasputin, or Colossus if that’s a bit of a mouthful.” He opened the doors, and Laura and Sarah stepped out, watching the receding jeeps with fear. “I work for an organisation called the X-Men. You won’t have heard of us.”  
He clapped his hands, and a metal box descended from the sky, attached to the end of a length of steel cable. It touched down, revealing itself to be about the same size as the elevator that Laura had just escaped from. It’s doors swung open, and Piotr gestured. “Please. The boss is eager to meet both of you.” He examined Sarah’s wounds. “And we will also need to look at those.” Laura wearily stepped into the second elevator, and soon found it rising. All three were silent for the ride up, until the box slotted into the hull of an aircraft that Laura didn’t remember seeing from the ground, and opening out into the jet’s interior, where they were greeted by a girl, only the same age as Laura herself, with dark brown hair and eyes, and somewhat angular features. Further towards the front of the plane another woman stood up, also with brown hair, and herself probably a little older than Sarah. “That’s the boss,” Piotr whispered.  
The girl stuck her hand out. “Hi,” she said brightly. “I’m Kitty. Are you Laura?”  
Laura was taken aback, but nodded and stared at the hand. “Oh,” said Sarah. “Laura, you’re meant to shake it. And how do you-”  
“I believe that I can answer that, Doctor Kinney,” called the other woman. She was Scottish, Sarah noted. She strode forward. “Kitty, Laura, why don’t you two get to know each other a bit? Piotr, start piloting the plane back to Muir Island. I’ll speak to Doctor Kinney. I’m sure she has a lot of questions.”  
Sarah watched warily as Piotr walked forward to the controls and Kitty led Laura to a small table, where she started trying to get to know her to very little avail. The woman approached Sarah, who shrunk back from her a little. “You’ll have to understand that I’m not much for trusting people these days,” she said cautiously.  
The woman laughed. “Me neither. Come with me, there’s a back room where we can chat.”  
She led Sarah to a small but comfortable room, occupied by a few chairs and a circular table. Sarah sat down, still unsure of what to say or do, and the woman took the seat opposite her. “Well,” she said. “First of all, my name is Moira X.”  
“X?” Sarah asked quizzically.  
“Just X.” She grimaced. "Look, everything must seem very confusing. Today has been wearing on you. You should rest."  
Sarah shook her head. "No. I want answers. How do you know everything already? When we were leaving? Laura's name? How did you implant Shatterstar in the program?"  
Moira sat back, pursing her lips. "Ok. Well, it's a long story, but we have a long flight."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Shatterstar fans.


	3. Chapter 2, The Curious Life of Moira X

Long ago, in a small village in the Scottish Highlands, a little girl was born. Her name was Moira, and she was the apple of her parents' eyes. She grew up in that country as most girls did, with laughter and cheer and plenty of friends. She played in the brooks and tarns, and knew all the names of the flowers and tors that surrounded her. One day, when she was twelve, Moira grew gravely sick, and her parents and the doctor feared terribly for her. However, to their relief and perplexment, she woke up the next day as well as she had ever been, and was immediately back to her life.  
Moira graduated school at the top of her class, and married her boyfriend. Her teachers said it was a shame that such a bright girl wouldn't go to university, but Moira didn't care, and soon she and her husband had three beautiful children all of their own, who themselves ran and played and laughed on their little farm. As Moira grew older, her own children eventually left home, to be married or in one case take on an apprenticeship in London. They all came to visit very often, and it wasn't long before Moira's seven grandchildren were playing with the toys that her own children had once forgotten.  
Moira was growing old by this time, and she and her husband decided to take a holiday to America, to see a little of the world before they no longer had the will or the means. Not long after they returned from their trip, Moira complained of an astute pain in her gut, and a much younger doctor was sad to inform her that she had a tumor growing in her intestines. Moira died not much later, surrounded by her family and friends, happy at a life well lived, at the age of eighty-six.  
At the instant that her brain activity ceased, the universe hiccuped, and slipped back roughly eighty-six years and nine months.  
In her second life, Moira was conceived in her mother's womb remembering in exact detail every moment of her first life. The foetus was confused, astonished, and most of all scared, and spent the next nine months trying desperately to work out exactly what was happening to her. She was born, exactly as she had been before, perfectly healthy and without issue, and screaming in confusion as much as in a need for air.  
She decided not to let on to anyone what had happened, afraid of the village's overzealous preacher, and instead set her mind to working things out for herself. Her parents quickly began to notice that she was different. She walked, talked, and read much earlier than any of her peers, as of course these were all things that Moira already knew how to do. She was called a genius and a prodigy, and found herself being pushed towards the sciences. She did not complain about this, as to her this seemed the best way to figure out her situation. She met her husband from her first life, but in knowing every flaw, every vice, and every imperfection that he held and would always hold, she paid him no mind, bending every effort towards a place at Oxford University.  
To her relief, her efforts bore fruit, and on her second graduation from school Moira’s teachers and parents were practically weeping tears of joy over her place at the esteemed university. Moira studied physics, as much as she could, trying to find any possible answer to the conundrum of her continued existence. To her dismay, in none of her studies did she find the answers she sought, despite the multiple PhDs that she acquired over the course of her studies.  
Disheartened, Moira resigned herself to a life of teaching, trying desperately to produce a life worth living from the existence of perpetual study that she had built for herself. She entered into a hasty and toxic marriage, exited it equally hastily, and turned to drink to slake the existential melancholy that she found herself wallowing in.  
Then, one day after her teaching was done, she returned to her apartment and switched on her television. She was immediately gripped by the content of the news program that came on, as it showed the face of a man she vaguely remembered seeing on campus from her days as a student. A man named Charles Xavier. He revealed to the world that he was a mutant, an individual who had through random genetic mutation gained certain supernatural abilities. Moira, entranced and excited by an occurrence that in her first life had gone almost entirely unnoticed, booked a one way ticket on the next plane to Philadelphia, which went down over the Atlantic with no survivors.  
In her third life, Moira took a similar approach to things, not to mention a sigh of relief that she was born again. Already knowing everything there was to know about physics, she studied biology at Oxford, the course that she knew Xavier had taken. She met him, and they quickly became close friends. She pressed him on the subject of potential for mutations such as those which they both harboured, and he did confide to her that he had suspicions of something similar. To her disappointment, he never read her mind to observe what she already knew about the subject, and she quickly exited his orbit after observing what she believed to be his thinly veiled god complex.  
Instead of following Xavier, Moira left for a laboratory in Norway, where she put forward her theories of mutation to the scientists already working there. They were sceptical, but Moira more than met the lab’s requirements for hire, and her ideas were published in a section of their journal. Interest picked up when Charles Xavier and Sarah Kinney published their own theories, despite accusations from Xavier that Moira had plagiarised his ideas. Moira exchanged a series of letters with Kinney, whose theories went above and beyond anything that she or Xavier had speculated over in their university years. Two years later, when SHIELD’s Department K released evidence of mutant existence to the public, they were overjoyed, despite Xavier receiving most of the credit due to coming out as a mutant almost as soon as they did so. When reports of other mutants filtered in from the public, Xavier was yet further lauded with praise, although Moira and Sarah were well congratulated among their own peers. They gradually stopped mailing each other, and eventually Moira heard that Sarah had become a recluse, working on a project that she refused to share details of. Moira was saddened, but got back to her own work with her friends.  
Experimentation on her own tissue samples was enough to confirm that she was herself a mutant, and she commenced work on a way to potentially rid a person of mutation, seeing the startling level of prejudice that humans expressed to mutants almost as soon as knowledge of mutation became widespread. This didn’t aid her standing amongst other mutants, but as far as she saw it, this was for their own good. Or so she thought.

Moira groggily opened her eyes. She could hear a crackling, as of fire, and flickering shadows danced over the wall of the lab. She was bound by thick ropes, and she lay in a puddle of her own blood and broken glass. She looked up, to see a woman peering down at her. She blinked. They were clad entirely in black and wore a golden face mask, showing an amused expression. Behind the mask, lips moved. “You’re awake,” she said.  
“Who the fuck are you?” Moira hissed, wriggling and trying to break free of her ties.  
“Don’t you recognise me, dear?” The woman asked.  
Recollection dawned on Moira. She had seen this woman on the TV once. She was a mutant and a terrorist, going by the alias of Destiny. “You’re that mutant supremacist,” she said through a mouthful of blood. She spat it out. “I figured one of your lot would find me at some point.”  
Destiny stared at her through that unshifting mask. “And you were right.” She bent down, examining Moira more closely. “Do you know what my mutant power is, Moira?”  
“Predicting the future,” Moira replied. It was a guess, but clearly a good one, as Destiny nodded.  
“Very good. Do you know something else strange, Moira?”  
“I know lots of very strange things,” she said, trying to shrug. The bonds restrained her.  
“I’m sure. I can’t see you, Moira.” Moira blinked in surprise. “You are entirely invisible to me. I can see the effects that you have, they burn themselves into my irises like the sun. But in their center is a person shaped hole. That’s you, Moira.”  
Moira almost laughed. “What did you do with Johan?” She asked with venom.  
“Your lab assistant? He’s dead. We didn’t find him as interesting as we are _ very _ much finding you.” She fumbled at Moira’s face a little before grabbing onto her chin and pulling them eye to eye. “What are you, Moira?”  
“A mutant.” There didn’t seem to be any point in lying at this point. “And my mutant power, Destiny, is changing the course of history.”  
Destiny cocked her head. “How?”   
“This is my third life. I’m born in the same place, at the same time, to the same people, every time.” She grinned. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”  
Destiny stood up, dropping Moira back to the floor. “Very interesting,” she murmured. “But not true.” She turned her back to Moira, and Moira for the first time saw the crowd of people who Destiny now faced. “If you continue along this path, you will always run into me. We will always come for you and this cure of yours, and we will always kill you for it. You will run headlong into our arms, and you will die. And if we don’t get you, the humans will.” She turned back to Moira. “Besides, one wrong step during your childhood, one scrape too many, and you may die before your mutation ever manifests. And you will be dead for good.” She gestured with her head. “Pyro, kill her. Slowly.”  
A man stepped forward from the crowd. Flames licked from his hands, and when he stretched them out they engulfed Moira, who screamed in pain and horror and terror.

In her fourth life, Moira decided to give Charles Xavier another try. This time studying anthropology, she approached him at Oxford and quickly entered his good graces. This time seeing past the flaws and failings, and gently guiding him away from them, she eventually allowed him to read her mind, showing him her three previous lives and the things she already understood, and it radicalised him. He came to love her, and she him, and stuck by his side for the foundation of the X-Men, through persecution, through good and ill. She helped him to spread his message of peace and coexistence, which he now clung to almost religiously, she helped the X-Men grow to the greatest superhero group on Earth, and was convinced for a time that she had beaten Destiny’s warning. She stood upon a grateful world, in which humans and mutants for the most part lived in peace.  
It was then that the sentinels emerged. They were human made machines, robots with the sole purpose of eradicating mutants wherever they appeared. Moira died in a rain of fire as the sentinels wiped out Charles’s school, desperately trying to shield him with her body.  
In her fifth life, Moira decided to arm herself. As a child, she wrote a letter to Doctor Strange, explaining her situation and desire to meet with and learn from him. He soon arrived in her village, and Moira’s parents were delighted that the strange American man had realised such potential in their daughter. She went to his Sanctum Sanctorum in New York, where she learned every secret of the arcane that she could find hidden in the Sanctum’s recesses. When Charles Xavier visited one day, she quietly ignored him, and continued studying. Strange learned to work around her, understanding that Moira intended to spend every possible moment of this life learning magic, and she was an exceptionally fast learner.  
When Bolivar Trask revealed his sentinels, much earlier than he had in her fourth life, the public was astonished when they immediately sought out the Sanctum Sanctorum, tore Moira out of it, and burned her alive.  
In her sixth life, Moira had a holiday. She lived a comfortable life as a professor of psychology and philosophy at Oxford. She married a man named Joseph MacTaggart, who she loved very much, and for the first time since her second death missed the time that she had been a simple farmer’s wife, just a little. When the sentinels came, she used magic to make Joseph forget her, and went out to meet her death with open arms.  
Moira spent the entirety of her seventh life hunting the Trask bloodline. One by one, each member of Bolivar Trask’s family died in bizarre and mysterious circumstances. This received a great deal of media coverage, as the Trasks were an affluent breed, but the searching of secret services and police departments turned up nothing. Doctor Strange did find Moira, however, and after a duel of magic she defeated him and sent him home to his Sanctum, before retreating into the wilderness, mutants finally safe.  
The sentinels emerged anyway. She found and fought them, in an AI controlled factory beneath the French Alps. She realised then that to try and stop the AI was pointless. It was something more than a computer program, and more like a meme that took root in anything that would receive it, be it Bolivar Trask’s mind or an abandoned factory complex. Moira died frustrated and angry, and with a hunger for vengeance.  
In her eighth life, Moira took an entirely different approach. She went to Oxford, studying chemistry, and ignoring Charles Xavier. She spent much of her life hidden away with Joseph, and when the time was right left him, with an empty promise to return, and went to the mutant super-terrorist Magneto, visiting him where he sat sequestered in Asteroid M, his hidden satellite, and revealed what she knew to him. He listened quietly, and it radicalised him.  
Magneto gathered a great army of mutants to him, some who would otherwise have become X-Men, and attempted, for the first time in any of Moira’s lives, a total domination of humanity. Armies fell, nations bent the knee, mutants were set free. Moira again dared to believe that it could have worked. As she wove spells and magic to keep humanity chained, she heard songs of resistance and freedom, and Moira and Magneto turned to see the Avengers. They fought them for decades, but were ultimately overcome. Tony Stark executed Moira on public television, and she died with another option in her mind.   
In her ninth life, Moira went to Apocalypse, the mutant immortal who had walked the Earth since the fall of Babel, and the champion of the survival of the fittest. They gathered a greater army than even Magneto had managed, and began the systematic extermination of humanity. Humanity fought back, and the sentinels were released earlier than ever before. The machines adapted and learned quickly, soon attaining sentience and approaching technological singularity, and Moira began to despair as the mutants were beaten back further and further. The sentinels subjugated humans, who began ascending to machinehood themselves. Soon, the destruction of mutants was only a secondary objective to the machines, as they ever approached their final ascent to singularity.

Moira stood upon the rubble of the mutant capitol Tyr, the sky red above her. Tears streamed down her face. A corpse lay at her feet, a nameless mutant who had died in fire and ash. Their skin had been burned away completely, and their skull showed through underneath. Behind her, Apocalypse let out a furious bellow, slamming his hands together. “Is there no way for us to live?” He roared. “Must we die like this forever?”  
Moira did not respond. She stared down at the mutant’s corpse, rage burning in her belly. She and Apocalypse had built the city and the mutant nation surrounding it from nothing, and it lay in ruin and disappointment at their feet. A drone whirred above her head, and her hand instinctively struck upwards and took it out of the sky with a burst of magical force. She remembered Charles, and Sarah, and Joseph, and even Magneto. She had left them all in each of her lives, and her last ditch effort for mutant lives had been crushed under her feet. She clenched her fist, feeling her nails biting into the flesh of her palm. “Apocalypse!” She called.  
“What, Moira?” He returned. To her astonishment, tears were in his voice. “We weren’t the fittest. We didn’t survive. We are _ doomed _ , Moira!”  
Moira turned to him. His hulking form was hunched over, holding the still corpse of Xorn, the Horseman of Death. “But we aren’t all dead yet,” she said, voice full of simmering rage. “One last attack. One last bomb against Nimrod. I’m going out with a bang if I have to go out at all.”  
Apocalypse stood. He placed Xorn’s body at his feet. “One last fight,” he snarled. “Very well. Let us go.” He approached Moira, who held out her arms. She carved magical runes into the air, and as Apocalypse approached her she shifted space, and they were deposited into the vast steel cathedral of Nimrod the Lesser. Bright lights turned on them, the machines rounding to face them, plasma cannons outstretched, eyes flaring. Some towered, as tall as skyscrapers, while others swarmed like flies around them. A wall of force was thrown up by the cathedral’s defence systems, encircling Moira and Apocalypse. Three iterations of Nimrod the Lesser approached, each as large as Apocalypse, each showing amusement on its synthetic face.  
“You arrive,” it chuckled. “Soon to be the last organic beings on this planet.” It clapped its enormous polymer hands together. “This is _ excellent. _ ”  
Apocalypse released a wordless roar and slammed his fist into the wall of force. It failed, and his eyes flared and released a beam of bright energy that the Nimrod iteration he fired it toward simply shrugged off. Nano-sentinels burrowed out of the floor, encircling the mutants. Moira clapped her hands, creating a ring of arcane fire. The nano-sentinels shrunk back from it, but Nimrod strode forward, still grinning. Apocalypse swung a fist, knocking one back, but another came for him from behind, and soon two had him by the arms while the third slammed against the bubble of force that Moira was barely able to contain herself within. It turned away from her, and wordlessly released a blast of plasma from its cannon, which obliterated Apocalypse’s until now immortal body. The apocryphal mutant slumped to the floor, charred and dead. Moira released the bubble, eyes trained on Nimrod, fury filling her veins.  
“That’s right,” Nimrod giggled, insultingly jovially. “Just die for me like a good girl.”  
“No,” Moira spat, and with one of the only spells that Doctor Strange had told her never to use summoned a singularity.  
There was an undetermined period of nothingness, and then Moira opened her foetal eyes for the first time in her tenth life. Fury filled her embryo form, and a new idea occurred to her in that fury. A new concept entirely. And it radicalised her.

A man sat in a corner of a musty Canadian bar. The wooden walls were covered in paintings and hunting trophies, not to mention a healthy coat of dust. A small television set was blaring over the bar, where the barman was serving the only two other patrons present. The man was nursing a beer, and had almost entirely given up on life. He sighed to himself, and took a swig.  
A woman took the seat opposite him at the table. She was pretty enough, with shoulder length brown hair and sparkling eyes, but the man wasn’t in the mood.  
“Not happening,” he grunted. “I’m broke.”  
“I’m not interested in a drink, Logan,” she replied. Logan froze. His eyes tracked up to her, and his nostrils flared.  
“Who are you?” He snarled. “If you’re Weapon X, you aren’t getting outta here alive, bub.” He maintained furious eye contact, and she sighed.  
“I’m not with Weapon X,” she told him. “But I would like to offer you a job.” She pointed up at the TV, which was displaying a horse race. “The barman does some bookkeeping on the side. Bet something on Loving Hoops.”  
Logan raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m stupid? It’s thirteen to one on that horse.” The woman sighed.  
“Barman!” She shouted. “Ten bucks on Loving Hoops!” He noticed as the bartender nodded to her that she was Scottish. He took another swig of beer, and watched the TV with interest. After a minute had passed, his eyes widened in astonishment, and the bartender unhappily shuffled over with one hundred and thirty dollars.  
“Ok,” he conceded. “I’m interested. What the hell was that?”  
The woman smiled, and stuck out her hand. “Logan, my name is Moira X. How would you like to be my bodyguard?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, it gets a lot more canon divergent after this.


	4. Chapter 3, Muir Island

Sarah blinked. “I…” she started, before petering out and blinking again. “That is… rather difficult to believe.”  
Moira nodded. “That’s the response I usually get. When we get to base, I’ll get one of our telepaths to link our minds so that I can show you.” She reached across the table, and took Sarah’s hand. “In every other life, Laura kills you when she detects the trigger scent that Callahan placed on you. Shatterstar gave his life for you. It’s not a sacrifice I wanted to have to make, but the past is the past. Except when it’s my future. I’m just glad to have my friend back.”  
Sarah withdrew her hand. “I… thank you, Mrs X. But I don’t know you yet.” She managed a weak smile. “I’m sure I will, though.” She stood up and went to the window. The Atlantic sprawled below them, a dark mass beneath the endless night sky. “Where are we going?”  
Moira stood up too, walking to her. “Somewhere safe. Where we can help Laura live a little of her childhood.” She looked at Sarah. “You need to sleep. Go on, there are bunks in the back. This jet uses stealth tech that hasn’t officially been invented yet, you and Laura will be safe.”  
“I… thank you,” Sarah said. She made her way out of the conference room towards the back of the plane. Laura had curled up in the seat she had sat down in. The girl called Kitty slept beside her, and Moira noticed a solved Rubik’s cube in her lap. Another lay in Laura’s, albeit shuffled seemingly at random. The man called Piotr waved to her from the pilot’s seat, and she wearily waved back. She spotted the bunks at the rear of the plane, and fell onto one, where she quickly and quietly dozed off, dreams churning with the events and revelations of the previous day.  
Moira took the seat besides Piotr and strapped herself in. “How did she take it?” He asked.  
Moira shrugged. “As well as I could have expected. She seemed fairly open. After all, she predicted more about mutation than Charles ever did. I’m not sure if she ever imagined _ me _ , though.”  
“She’ll understand,” Piotr assured her. “We’re just coming up to Iceland. You want to stop and get supplies?”  
Moira shook her head. “No point. We’re well stocked enough at home.” She threw back her head. “Radio ahead. Tell Scott to keep the launchpad clear, and make sure Logan’s in presentable shape.”  
“Ororo would never let him get away with being scruffy on a day like this,” Piotr chuckled. “I’ll make sure they know.”  
“Thanks,” Moira grunted, closing her eyes and drifting off as Piotr started up the radio. She smiled as she slept. She was on the right path.

** Piotr Rasputin, “Colossus” **   
**Country of origin: Russia.**   
**Mutation: Organo-metallic form, displaying extreme strength and durability.**   
**Power class: Alpha**

Muir Island was experiencing an unexpected bout of sunshine. The puffins wheeled and soared above the cliffs, screamed at and bombarded by seagulls, while deer scampered through the long grasses. Logan strutted out over the moorland, Ororo dragging Jimmy beside him. Scott was standing on the launchpad, holding a set of landing indicators, and waving them at the heli-jet that was descending from the sky. He nodded to Logan as he approached, who waved back. The heli-jet touched down as Logan arrived on the circle of tarmac. He gulped, and made sure his collar was straight.  
“Is that a shirt, Logan?” Scott asked with a grin.  
“Shut up, Summers,” Logan growled back. “It looks fine. Right?”  
“It’s great,” Scott assured him. “I trust we have you to thank for this weather, Storm?”  
“I had a hand in things,” she said with a coy smile. “Besides, the poor thing’s been cooped up underground her whole life, and I thought the least I could do was to make a good impression.”  
“I don’t get it,” Jimmy sulked. “There’s new people all the time. Why do I have to be here?”  
Logan bent down to his son’s level. “I told you, James,” he said, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “Laura is your sister. I wanted you to be here when she gets off the plane.”  
“Can I go inside, mom?” Jimmy whined to Ororo. “Please?”  
“Once you’ve shaken her hand and said hello like a good boy, you can do whatever you want,” she chided. “But you have to do your schoolwork.”  
“Fine,” Jimmy said, screwing up his tiny face in rage. Ororo and Logan exchanged tired glances, and the helijet’s boarding ramp descended with a hiss. Logan straightened up, and self consciously adjusted his cuffs. A number of figures descended the ramp. Kitty came first, running down to Logan and Ororo with mirth in her eyes.  
“Hi!” She hissed in a bad stage whisper. “She’s funny. Like weird funny. It’s kind of cool though. I like her.”  
“Hush,” Ororo told her. “She has Logan’s ears, she can hear you.” Kitty’s eyes widened, and she covered her mouth.  
Logan stepped forward. A young girl was descending to ramp, wearing a tattered black jumpsuit and looking around with a mix of apprehension and excitement. She caught sight of Logan, and her eyes widened. She cautiously approached him, followed and guided by a woman in an equally tattered lab coat. He bent down. “Laura?” He asked quietly.  
She extended a hand, running the tips of her fingers over the hair of his sideburns. “Logan…” she breathed. “Dad.” He felt his heart lurch.  
“Yeah,” he said softly. Slowly, trying not to arouse fright in her, he brought his hand up, unsheathing his claws. She brought hers up and did the same. “Hot damn,” he breathed. “Oh, you poor little thing…” He hugged her. For a moment she flailed, clearly not used to the gesture, but swiftly grew accustomed and hugged back. “I’m gonna kill those bastards,” he swore, squeezing her tight. “What they did to us should never-”  
“Logan!” Ororo exclaimed. He looked up to see her covering Jimmy’s ears with her hands. “There are children present!”  
“Oh…” he muttered. “Kids. Right. Sorry.” He looked back at Laura, who was frowning up at him with what seemed to be amusement. He looked at the woman standing behind her. “Hi,” he said, sticking his hand out. “I’m, uh. I’m Logan.”  
“Sarah,” she replied, taking the hand. “You already know all about Laura.”  
“Aye. Oh, this is my wife, Ororo. And that’s Jimmy, my son. Jimmy, come and shake Laura’s hand now. And Sarah’s, come on. They’ve had a very long journey.”  
Jimmy sulkily stepped up to Laura, shook her hand and muttered a hello, then repeated the overly hasty process with Sarah, before making a break for it and sprinting through the long grass back to the village. “Sorry about that,” Ororo sighed. “He’s only nine.” She reached down and placed a hand on Laura’s shoulder. “It’s wonderful to meet you, my dear.”  
Laura was entranced. “You have pretty eyes,” she said softly.  
“I know, right!” Kitty burst out from behind Logan, almost giving him a heart attack. “And they change colour when she uses her powers and they glow in the dark sometimes!”  
“Thank you, Kitty,” Moira called. “Sarah, Laura, this is Scott.”  
Scott waved. “Hi. I’m Scott Summers. Cyclops. Leader of the X-Men.”  
Sarah waved back. “What’s with…”  
“The shades?” Scott tapped his red lensed glasses. “My mutation can be a little, ah, destructive? Hard to control? Anyway, the shades keep it back.”  
Sarah nodded, clearly not reassured. “Ah.”  
“So, uh,” Logan said. “Where’s Shatterstar?”

** Ororo Munroe, “Storm” **   
**Country of origin: Morocco.**   
**Mutation: Control over the four “traditional” elements, including basic temperature manipulation. Affects control over weather.**   
**Power class: Omega.**

Muir Island had been Logan’s idea. In the early days, when it had just been him and Moira, rushing around the world and searching for proto-mutants, she had made sure to stress to him the importance of finding somewhere out of the way to serve as a bastion. Logan had remembered a place that he had managed to evade Weapon X for three years before becoming fed up with the weather and leaving for less soggy fields. Moira had been interested in the prospect of being able to remain in her own country, and had teleported them there immediately.  
Magic had aided them considerably, as Moira had been able to manipulate the outcomes of several games of chance that had ultimately got both her and Logan kicked out of Vegas with more money than they would in other circumstances known what to do with. Moira had contacted several construction agencies, and soon a village had been built on the island. At the time, only two houses had been inhabited, and Logan had felt a little disquieted by the ghost town that they had constructed.  
Now, the village was almost full to capacity, and Moira was contemplating building more. Moira had also constructed an underground complex just below the island’s surface, covered for by the considerable wealth of Emma Frost and Warren Worthington, two additions to the village’s population. The complex was where Logan went to get debriefed, the jets resided, and the training rooms were located. It contained a number of other facilities which Logan didn’t even pretend to understand, but which Moira spent a lot of time in.  
Laura was clearly enthralled by the island. Her head was spinning between each new thing she saw, while Kitty chattily explained them all to her. Occasionally, an adult would have to step in and get her to rein in a bit when the torrent of information looked like it was in danger of swamping Laura, who was desperately trying to keep up and failing miserably.  
Kitty was a relatively new addition herself, having been fetched by Jean only seven months prior following a call from her distressed mother, but the girl had slotted in with the other kids immediately, and had already demonstrated extreme intelligence beyond what even Moira had experience with. She was keeping a very close eye on Kitty.  
“Of course, there’s the question of where you’ll be staying,” Moira butted in as Kitty started up on a ramble about the island’s native animals. “I have prepared a house on the outskirts of the village, should you wish to stay there.”  
“Alternatively, we have spare rooms at home,” Ororo said. “You wouldn’t be a burden at all, we’ve got more than enough room. We’re right in the middle of the village, so you’d be nearby to everyone, we can introduce you.”  
Sarah’s head was spinning, but she didn’t want to be alone tonight. “We’ll stay with you,” she said. “For as long as we need to. Thank you, Ororo.”  
Ororo smiled and nodded. “That’s quite alright. Jimmy won’t be too much of an issue, we promise.”  
The village was coming into sight now. Despite only having been built thirty or so years ago, it was quite picturesque. Ivy grew on the houses, smoke rose from the chimneys of several houses, the air was fresh, and the sounds of life emanated from the buildings. Sarah felt herself smiling weakly. A hope blossomed in her chest. It was over. The nightmare was done, and she and Laura were finally free. As they crossed the threshold of the village, she collapsed to her knees, and started to sob.

Moira sat before her council, hands clasped somberly. “Shatterstar was a good mutant,” she said softly. “His passing has marked us all.”  
The five people sitting before her bowed their heads.  
“Aye,” Logan sighed.  
“He was a good man,” Scott said gruffly.  
“A true brother in arms,” Xorn grunted.  
“A man of excellent humour,” Emma remarked.  
Sage said nothing.  
“But he didn’t die for nothing,” Moira continued. “Sarah and Laura Kinney are safe. Your eldest child is free, Wolverine.” Logan cracked a grin.  
“How is she, by the way?” Emma asked. “Settled yet?”  
Logan wrinkled his nose. “Nah. I spoke to Sarah, she said to give it a few years. But she’s wonderful. I’m taking her out to the beach tomorrow, just me and her. Gonna try and get to know her a little better.”  
“On your behalf, I am so very pleased,” Xorn chuckled in his hollow voice. His helmet never let on any emotion, but in the dim lights of the council chamber, there seemed to be some mirth in the blue light of the eye holes. “And of course, we cannot forget. There is soon to be a baby in the Summers household.”  
Scott turned red as all eyes turned to him. “It’s a boy,” he said quietly, staring down at the table. “We were thinking of naming him Nathan Christopher. After my dad.”  
Solemn nods were exchanged all around the table. Moira cleared her throat. “Anyway,” she continued. “Now is the time to turn our attention to our next mission. It’s another long game, I’m afraid.” She pushed the button on the desk beside her, and a flickering image of an armoured figure was projected into the air above the table. The council shared a gasp. Moira pursed her lips. “Hence it being a long game. Magneto is no idle threat, and I believe him to have fully mastered his Omega-Class abilities. However, he isn’t invincible.”  
“What do you propose?” Emma asked, leaning back in her seat.  
“Lure him out,” Sage interrupted, before Moira had a chance to speak. She turned to Moira. “He’s utterly assured in his own power, and that may be his downfall.”   
“Sage is as accurate as ever,” Moira said, nodding to her. “It will require us to reveal ourselves. How does everybody feel about becoming superheroes?”

** Emma Frost **   
**Country of origin: United States of America (New England).**   
**Mutation (primary): Psionics (telepathy).**   
**Mutation (secondary): Organo-crystalline form, demonstrating extreme durability.**   
**Power class (primary): Omega.**   
**Power class (secondary): Alpha.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working out some kinks with Chapter 4, and I'm starting college soon, so it might not be up for a bit. If anyone has any feedback, I'd love to hear it.


	5. Chapter 4, Fatal Attraction

_ Six years later.  
_ “Laura!”  
A fist was hammering at her bedroom door. She groaned and buried her face in the pillow. “Go away!” She complained. “Ten minutes!”  
“Young lady, you have a guest,” Logan’s voice cut through her drowsy brain.  
Laura sat bolt upright in bed. “Kitty?” She called.  
A head materialised through the closed door, and Kitty stepped through. “Hi!” She said brightly. “You want to get dressed?”  
Laura was already pulling clothes on. “What happened?” She asked. “I thought you were booked on the Young Heroes program for the next three months?”  
Kitty shrugged. “Wasn’t my speed,” she said. “Anyway! You get a boyfriend while I was gone?”  
Laura scoffed. “You kidding? With my options?”  
“Oh, I don’t know. You could have drunkenly made out with someone and in the heat of the moment sparked a whirlwind romance.”  
Laura raised an eyebrow. “Ok, let’s review,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Alex cares more about the gym than he does about… anything else. Bobby is absolutely smitten for you.”  
“He is not!” Kitty exclaimed. “Besides, how would you know?”  
“Even I can see that, Kitty, you’re only trying to deny it. Kurt’s dating Rachel, and has been forever. Sam has the brains of a mouse, Jean-Paul and Chris are both gay and sort of unofficially dating. Jamie is way too in love with himself, and Armando wouldn’t know flirting if it knocked his house down and forced him to adapt to being squished flat.”  
Kitty nodded. “I concede. Is Bobby really crushing on me?”  
Laura put her head in her hands, now fully dressed. “I’m going to wash in the sea,” she said with a sigh. “You can come if you want.”  
“Isn’t that cold?”   
Laura shrugged. “Depends how tough you are.” She flexed, and Kitty winced.  
“How much time do you spend in the gym again?” She asked.  
“An hour or two a day.” She grinned. “Healing factors, sis.”  
“Yeah, no kidding,” Kitty muttered, following Laura out of the room and passing Logan, Ororo, and Sarah at the breakfast table. “Hello Dr Kinney! Mrs Munroe! Logan!”  
“Laura!” Logan called as they went past. “You not gonna have breakfast?”  
Laura shrugged. “I’ll be back. Save me some toast and jam. Ok bye!”  
They hurried out the door, slamming it shut behind them and laughing all the way down to the beach, where Laura pulled her outer layer of clothing off and dived into the frigid water. Kitty winced for the second time that day. “You sure you’re not interested?” Laura called. Kitty took a step away from the water’s edge. “Your loss.”

Upon his orbital citadel, Magneto observed as Scott Summers and Emma Frost gave an address before the Supreme Court, observed by photographers and reporters. Their message was one of peace, one of coexistence. “This will not do,” he growled. “These X-Men have become rather a problem.”  
In the shadows behind him, Destiny stepped forward. “It is hard to see their futures,” she told him. “It is as though something I do not comprehend is cloaking them.”  
“How unfortunate,” Magneto growled. “How do we fare?”  
“Summers and Frost cut us off at all turns,” Destiny said. “Some of them are far too powerful. We believe that the masked individual known as Xorn has Omega-Class abilities of comparable power to your own, though he has not fully realised them yet. Why such an individual would choose to aid humanity is simply… beyond me.”  
Magneto rapped his fingers on the arm of his seat. “Do you have any information about their movements in the near future?” He asked.  
“None on the X-Men themselves. However, it is indicated that one or more of the children they harbour will be present at a nightclub in Edinburgh in four days time.”  
Magneto smiled wickedly. “Good,” he ruminated. “An excellent turn of events.”  
“What do you wish to do?” Destiny asked.  
“Do we know which child?”  
“It is indicated that it is to be the Wolverine’s brat.”  
Magneto’s smile widened. “Perfect,” he chuckled. “I know just the thing.”

**Katherine Pryde  
Country of origin: United States of America (New York).  
Mutation (primary): Intangibility.  
Mutation (possible secondary): Superhuman intellect.  
Power class (primary): Alpha.  
Power class (possible secondary): Gamma.**

“Mr Summers, it is a true honour to meet you,” the President of the United States of America said, shaking Scott’s hand and smiling warmly. “And you must be the delightful Mz Frost.” She turned to Emma and shook her hand. “It is a true honour to have you both in the White House.”  
“Let us assure you, Madam President,” Emma said cordially. “The honour is entirely ours.”  
Scott looked up at the White House. It was an impressive arrangement, even in his red tinted vision. The security detail accompanying the President eyed him nervously, and he gave them what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He had left the safety of his visor on, but he was sure they had seen him in action, and they had every right to be concerned. Emma was chatting to the President now, and they were led into the lushly carpeted and exquisitely decorated interior of the White House. Even Emma, the queen of style, widened her eyes in shock.  
_If Moira would only take pointers from time to time, I could have the entire village decked out like this,_ she thought to Scott.  
_The word ‘rustic’ doesn’t really come into your vocabulary, does it?_ He returned, amused.  
Emma sniffed haughtily. _Does the fact that my house is the only bastion of civilisation on the entirety of Muir Island not bother you at all, Scott?  
_ _On task, people,_ a new mind broke through. Scott smiled.  
_Sorry, _he told his wife. _You should see this place, though.  
__ I’m busy enough keeping you two safe,_ Jean said. _Do you have any idea how difficult it is to keep the anti-air weaponry from firing on Ororo?  
_ _She’s exaggerating, _Ororo butted in. _I’m absolutely fine up here.  
__ You’re welcome,_ Jean grumbled.  
By this point, Scott and Emma had both stopped listening. Emma was back to exchanging pleasant small talk with the President, while Scott checked his HUD, following the A-Team’s progress. Logan and Remy, while somewhat lacking in ability to cordially get along, made an extremely effective field team, and were making reasonable progress. Scott pursed his lips, relaying this information to Jean, as the reached a lavishly decked dining table, where both he and Emma gasped in feigned astonishment. They had been prepped extensively on what to expect at the table by Hank McCoy, resident X-Men physicist and foodie. Any changes in the menu were to be treated with extreme caution. Fortunately, all the food was as Hank had described, and Scott and Emma were soon being treated to the finest cuisine that America could by. The few reporters who had been allowed snapped away with their cameras, while Scott prayed silently that Logan and Remy had made it past the difficult defence systems without issue. Sage was always spot on with these things, but even so it was difficult not to worry.  
Halfway through the first course, a secret serviceman strolled into the room, and whispered something into the President’s ear. Her eyes widened, and she turned to Scott and Emma. Scott steeled himself for the worst, and Emma’s eyes narrowed in the way they did when she was working on the defences of a particularly well defended mind, but the President was beaming. “Well,” she said. “We seem to have an unexpected guest.”  
The secret service were now pulling up another chair and setting a fourth place at the table. Scott turned to the door, and his eyes widened behind the ruby red visor. Captain America strode through the door, a grin plastered across his chiseled face. “Madam President, Mr Summers, Mz Frost,” he greeted them. “I’m sorry for not giving more notice, I was attending to some important business and wasn’t sure when I would be finished.”  
“Captain Steve Rogers,” Scott said, standing up and extending a hand. “What a pleasure it is to make your acquaintance.”  
“The pleasure is all mine, Mr Summers. May I call you Scott?” He took the hand as Scott nodded. “And you must be the delightful Emma Frost.”  
“That would be me,” Emma said, smiling her radiant smile and taking Rogers’ hand. _I’m going through his thoughts,_ she relayed to Scott. _He seems to be mostly harmless, but it’s difficult to tell with this one.  
_ Rogers sat, and a plate was hurried to him. He leaned forward. “So,” he said, cutting at his meat. “You guys. Your whole message, peace and co-existence and all. Love it. You’re really showing up that Magneto guy, hey?”  
“We’re trying,” Emma chuckled. “Fortunately, we have some great strategists on the team.”  
“That’s wonderful. Say, this team of yours. It’s quite extensive, right? How did you guys come about, anyway?”  
“Oh, it’s a very long story,” said Scott, waving a hand. “And a complicated one, at that.”  
Rogers narrowed his eyes, but sat back. “Understandable,” he said. “So, I was thinking about the X-Men recently, and you know if you ever had any candidates for Avengers among your ranks, we’d be more than happy to accommodate.”  
Scott checked Logan and Remy’s progress while Emma kept Rogers and the President entertained. They had reached the vault now, and the object located within. A message from Logan popped up on his visor. ‘Trouble. Need backup.’  
_Jean,_ Scott thought. _Logan and Remy need assistance in the heist. They didn’t say what sort.  
__ Understood,_ she replied. _I’m sending Hank.  
__ Thank you._ A message popped up on the visor, an image of Hank’s furry blue face. He crossed his fingers, and returned to the conversation.

Logan dumped the tablet onto the table of the council chamber. Moira leaned over it, inspecting it closely. “It’s the one,” she murmured. “The one we need.”  
The tablet was easily centuries old. It was polished sandstone, covered in an ancient system of writing. Logan folded his arms. “You gonna tell us what it is yet?” He asked.  
Moira nodded. “There is another threat to our mission, one I haven’t yet discussed.” She looked up at Remy and Hank, both of whom were equally as intrigued by the stone writing. Hank was a large man, somewhat ape like in appearance, his whole body covered in a thick coat of blue fur. Remy was shorter, long brown hair tied back by a bandana, a layer of stubble framing his quizzically pursed lips. His eyes were red. Moira continued, “He is an ancient mutant, the first that I have ever heard of. His name is En Sabbah Nur, but he has taken on the moniker of Apocalypse.” Remy let out a barely audible cry. Moira looked up. “Familiar to you, Gambit?”  
“I, uh, I don’t think so,” he replied hastily in his cajun twang. “I need to go.” He turned, and hastily left the room, coat flapping at his heels. Moira pursed her lips. Remy and Sage had never revealed where they had come from before the X-Men, and they were the only two people on the team whose powers naturally shielded them against telepathic intrusion.  
“He’s hiding something,” Hank said.  
“That much is obvious,” Moira said. “Apocalypse never mentioned anything about him, though. What’s he up to?”

**Remy LeBeau, “Gambit”  
Country of origin: United States of America (Louisiana).  
Mutation: Kinetic charge.  
Power class: Alpha.**

There were eight of them. They weren’t officially called anything, but they were clearly a group. Those of them who had parents or siblings had learned to trust them to take care of each other, and more importantly not to try and keep them apart. Certain members of Moira’s council, behind closed doors, called them the X-Men of the future. The other kids didn’t envy them as such, because they were the ones who were the most broken, who had been cast out and mocked by the world the worst. That, to Laura’s mind, was what made them so close. Currently, they were lounging on the beach under the clouded sky, catching up and making aimless small talk.  
Laura was the unofficial leader. She had the smartest ideas, and having the most pull with the council would usually be the one to get them out of trouble. Kitty Pryde, the genius girl with the fast mouth was the one had roped them all together. Then there was Rachel Grey, Jean Grey’s little sister, with intense eyes, short red hair, and red markings around the sides of her face, usually the one to get them into trouble, argumentative and fierce. Her boyfriend, Kurt Wagner, was almost nothing like her. He was quiet and reserved, German, had blue skin and hair, too few fingers, a snaking tail, and an aversion to conflict and violence. Bobby Drake was the mediator of the group, never quite taking anything seriously, always finding the joke, desperately trying to keep things together when the going got rough. Elizabeth Braddock was widely regarded to be the only person among them with a brain on her shoulders, possibly because her foster parents in England hadn’t had any of their own, having decided to adopt her from an orphanage in Japan while they were on holiday. Beth didn’t understand why they had done this, because they hadn’t loved her, and had promptly thrown her back out of their house once her mutation manifested. Her girlfriend, Marian Carlyle, was the quietest amongst them, even in a group of quiet people. Her long dark hair, struck through with white at the front, was tied in a ponytail that she had been growing for years. Marian’s mutation meant that she couldn’t make skin to skin contact with other people, which had lead to her being reserved and sparing with emotion. The final member was Alex Summers, Scott’s younger brother. Alex spent most of his time at the gym, and was on the best terms of any of them with the other kids. He was viewed by most to be the second in command, and he and Laura made an excellent group for planning what certain older residents of Muir Island had come to call “all that bullshit.”  
Currently, the eight of them were lounging on the beach, idly chatting. Bobby, sitting on a rock, was ruminating on his standing with the council. “Does Logan like me?” He asked. “I mean, I get the impression he really makes it obvious when he doesn’t like someone.”  
Laura shrugged, leaning against the cliff edge next to Kitty, who was trying to assemble something with a lot of wires protruding from it. “Dad doesn’t talk to me much about you lot. I think he likes most of you.”  
“He hasn’t ever said anything specific?” Bobby asked, sounding disappointed.  
Laura shrugged. “He hasn’t expressed opinions about any of you. He’s said that the council does discuss us sometimes.”  
“As a group?” Rachel asked, sitting up and disrupting Kurt, who had been resting his head on her shoulder. He have her an irritated glance, and she momentarily zoned out in the way that Laura had learned meant she was telepathically communicating.  
Laura shrugged. “He didn’t say.” She kicked at some shingle, sending a small avalanche crashing into the sea.  
“What if we became X-Men?” Alex asked. “We’re all fairly powerful. They’d let us. Once we were old enough.”  
“It’s not as if I have any other skills,” Laura snorted.  
“That is entirely false!” Beth called from the other side of Bobby’s rock. “You’re the most musically talented person on this island!”  
“Big fish, small pond,” Laura muttered.  
“No for real,” Kurt said. “You could be a singer or something.”  
“And reveal myself to Kimura? Not happening.”  
The group lapsed into awkward silence, looking at each other but not at Laura, until the silence was broken by Marian. “We could always kill Kimura,” she said quietly.  
Laura laughed. “I’d love to, but I couldn’t find her any more easily than she can find me,” she sighed.  
“You can’t stay cooped up on the island forever,” Kurt said. “You’ll miss out on life.”  
“I went to France with the family last summer,” Laura muttered.  
“For a week long holiday,” Kurt shot back. “You need to get out. Properly. Look, we can ask the council for a weekend trip to Edinburgh. There’s eight of us. Rachel and Beth can crush people with their minds. We’ll be fine.”  
“Just to clarify, I’ve never crushed anyone with my mind,” Beth pointed out. “And nor do I plan to. Unless it’s anyone who did anything to you at Weapon X, Laura, in which case, in fairness, they’re as good as dead.”  
Laura kicked at a few stones. “I mean,” she sighed. “Fine. I can go to Edinburgh for a weekend.” She looked up at the sky, and said a silent prayer to anything god shaped that might happen to be listening.  
“Right,” Bobby said, slapping his knees. “They’ll be serving supper soon. Who’s hungry?”

“You really don’t look good,” Beth said, as Laura stared into the middle distance, occasionally bothering to take a bite of her food.  
“I’m fine,” she muttered. Beth crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.  
“You aren’t. Come on, what’s on your mind?”  
Laura poked at her potatoes with her fork. “What Kurt said,” she said quietly. “About leaving the island. The fact that Kimura’s still hunting me.”  
Beth nodded. Marian leaned forward. It was just the three of them at the table, the others having all returned home or into the moorland to drink. “You know,” she said, softly and quietly. “If they came for you, we’d stop them.”  
Laura shook her head. “The sentiments earlier were nice,” she said with a hefty sigh. “But you haven’t seen them in action. I know you’re powerful, Beth. But Kimura is something else. She’d never come near you.”  
Beth reached out and patted Laura’s hand. “And I’d never let her out of my sight if she could be near us. And it isn’t like we’re the only ones you’ve got. Storm and your dad would do anything to protect you.”  
Laura pushed her bowl away. “I’m not hungry,” she muttered. “I need a drink.”  
“I have beer in my room,” Beth said with a smile. “Let’s go get some, yeah?”  
“Yeah,” Laura sighed. She looked down at her bowl. A tear started to roll down her nose. Beth reached out and gripped her shoulder.  
“Hey! Hey, it’s alright!” She gently shook Laura while Marian sat back, not sure of what to do. “Laura? Laura, come on. We’re going to my room.” She stood up, pulling Laura to her feet. “It’s ok, it’s alright. It can’t be that bad. Come on, Marian.”  
Marian nodded, and followed as Beth led Laura out of the canteen, up through the stairway of the little building that the kids occupied. She pushed her own door open, into her own space. The walls were plastered with posters for old music that neither Laura or Marian would have heard of were it not for Beth, every surface well polished and decorated with photos of the eight of them, random nicknacks from around the world that she had collected when she had had parents rich enough to fund such expeditions. Her wardrobes were filled with the latest fashion, and her bed was large and comfy. She sat Laura down on the bed and crouched in front of her, while Marian closed and quietly locked the door behind them. “Laura,” Beth whispered. “What’s the matter?”  
Laura shook her head. Beth patted her knee. “Come on, now,” she said, a spark of mirth entering her eye. “Something’s up. You can talk to us, Laura.”  
“We’re trustworthy,” Marian assured her.  
Laura laughed a hollow laugh. “It’s just…” she started, before considering and continuing. “Nothing in my life has been…”  
“Normal?” Beth supplied.  
“Yeah. I’m made from cloned genetic material. My mother was allowed to care for me because it was her job. I was killing people before I learned how to drive. Everything in my life now revolves around…” She threw up her hands in frustration. “Staying hidden. Dad’s already trying to breach the subject of me joining the X-Men, like there’s nothing else I’d want to do with my life. Yeah, sure, Beth. I’d love to be a musician. I’d love to be able to do concerts and talk to fans and make records without having to look over my shoulder every five seconds. But I can’t have that life.”  
“I’d buy your records,” Marian said, but was silenced by a glance and a finger to the lips from Beth.  
“Laura,” Beth said softly. “One day, you’ll be ok. Marian, there’s beer in the wardrobe.” While her girlfriend rushed for the alcohol, she continued consoling Laura. “Kinney, you’re something special. It’s obvious. Logan is proud of you, has always been proud of you, in a way he’s never been of your brother.”  
“He doesn’t spend enough time with Jimmy,” Laura muttered.  
“Maybe not, but that’s not what’s important right now. Laura, whether or not you’re destined to be the leader of the X-Men, or the best punk rocker who ever lived, or anything else, there are people who will be proud of you.” Marian handed them a beer each. “Thanks sweetheart. Laura, look at me.” Laura looked up, eyes puffy. “We’re proud of you. All of us. Logan and Sarah too.”  
Laura nodded, taking a swig of beer. “What do you think I’ll be?”  
“Oh, my opinion doesn’t count for much.”  
“It does to me.”  
Beth took a shaky breath. “Laura Kinney, you’re going to go far. Very far.”  
“Hit ‘em right between the eyes, kid,” Marian whispered. Laura laughed through the tears.  
“We’re going to get that trip to Edinburgh,” Beth assured her. “And it’s going to be great.”

**Elizabeth Braddock  
Country of origin: Japan/United Kingdom.  
Mutation: Psionics (telepathy, telekinesis).  
Power class: Alpha, Alpha.**

Moira held the tablet to the light, carefully inspecting the sigils that covered its surface. She had learned to read Sumerian cuneiform during her anthropological studies at Oxford. She scratched a pen across a sheet of paper. She highly doubted the American government had understood what they had had in their possession, and that was fortunate. If they had known, the emergence of the sentinels would likely have come some time before she had ever experienced it.  
She had seen the tablet before, in her ninth life. Apocalypse had retrieved it from the ruins of the White House after their first crushing victory against the humans. He had seemed afraid of it, and destroyed it immediately. Moira postulated that it detailed some way to harm him discovered by the ancient Sumerians. So far, it described a power of immense proportion, one which had allegedly once done battle with Apocalypse and driven him into hiding for many centuries.  
“Still working?” Someone asked. Moira turned to see Sarah watching her from the doorway.  
“Aye,” she replied. “I think I’m close to a breakthrough. The Sumerians knew of... something which could pose a serious threat to Apocalypse.”  
Sarah sidled into the room, peering at the tablet. “How did he die in your past life again?” She asked.  
Moira shook her head. “He was killed by the machine singularity. We couldn’t achieve the technology they used to do that to him in a hundred years, and by then it would be too late.”  
Sarah sat down and turned the tablet over in her hands. “What did you say his real name is?”  
“En Sabbah Nur. In a language that has fallen out of all memory, it means ‘The First One’.”  
“The first what?”   
“Mutant. Apocalypse has access to abilities that don’t stem from his mutations, though. Some kind of alien magic I could never identify surged through him.”  
Sarah handed back the stone, and Moira continued her transcription. They sat in silence for a time, Sarah idly playing a game on her phone while Moira worked with pursed lips and sweat beading on her brow as the stone became more eroded as the writing progressed. “I’m getting there,” she muttered. “Just one more line…”  
Sarah leaned over the paper with interest as Moira’s pen came to a halt just before she wrote the final word. Sarah looked up, to see the look of horror across Moira’s face. “Moira?” She asked. “What’s up?”   
“I…” Moira started, shaking her head. She put her pen back to the paper, and scrawled the final word, which the Sumerian writer had imprinted deeper into the tablet, almost as though to give it special emphasis. She sat back and stared at it. “This is a complication,” she said grimly. Sarah looked at the word, not quite understanding.  
“What does it mean?” She asked softly. Moira looked over at her.  
“Well,” she said. “It all started in my fourth life, with Jean Grey.”

Jean Grey, wife to Scott Summers, sister to Rachel Grey, mother to Nathan Christopher Summers-Grey, was hovering a little above the roof of their house, meditating upon Muir Island. Her mind reached out across the expanse of moorland and beach, while the rain parted around her, keeping her dry and warm. She spoke to the rabbits, the deer, the gulls, and the terns. Her mind probed into the waters around the island, where otters and dolphins chased salmon through the thrashing grey waters. A smile played across her face. She felt Laura, pacing her bedroom with fear and confusion in her heart. She felt Piotr and Hank, hastily pulling tarpaulins over sensitive equipment as the storm grew more intense and the rain pummeled them like arrows. She gave them a telekinetic helping hand, for which she was thanked before they turned and rushed inside. She felt Dr Reyes in the sick bay with Kitty, who had been outside and caught a cold. She almost felt Sage, sitting before the island’s vastly complex computer network, but the woman’s mind was impenetrable, and she sensed only its presence. She took a deep sigh, focusing her mind. There was something else, something she had felt on occasion, something she desired to feel again. She angled her face upwards, searching for it amongst the cosmos.  
Out of the gulfs of space between the stars, in a voice of crackling energy and brilliant radiance spoke. She felt warmth spread her body as it coursed through her, and giggled as it observed her.  
**_Jean Grey,_** came the cosmic tone. **_You have not entirely forgotten me.  
_** _That would be difficult,_ Jean replied.  
**_Indeed,_** the being said. **_What did you wish from me, Jean Grey?  
_** _Nothing,_ Jean thought. _I just wanted to know if I could still contact you.  
_ **_I’m always listening,_** the presence told her.  
_It has been so long…_ Jean thought. _I had begun to believe that I imagined you.  
_**_Jean Grey,_** the entity’s resonant voice chuckled. **_Nothing in your world could ever imagine anything like me._** The presence faded, retreating back into the vastness of empty space from where it had emerged.  
Jean let out a shaky breath, and opened her eyes. An afterimage seemed to linger in her vision for a moment, a rising flame imprinted over the world, but she blinked and it was gone.  
“Jean!” She heard someone calling. “Supper!”  
“Coming, Scott!” She called back, hopping off the roof, the being from beyond the Earth for a moment forgotten.

On the floor of her room, Beth tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable on the camping mattress. On the bed, Marian slept soundly, untroubled. Beth buried her face in the pillow, growling in frustration. She held her eyes close shut, trying desperately to drift off, but the sounds of the storm outside didn’t soothe her in the way that they usually did.  
When it didn’t work, she threw the blanket off the mattress and stood up quietly, trying not to disturb Marian, and made her way out into the corridor. Across from her room was Dani’s, a Cherokee girl and another psychic. Beth concentrated for a second, practicing her telepathy. Not detecting a waking mind in Dani’s room, she turned to the stairway and made her way down to the canteen. Outside the floor to ceiling windows, rain torrented around the building. She walked over to them and reached out, telekinetically parting the rain in the way she had seen Jean Grey do before.  
“Neat trick,” someone said. Beth shrieked and whirled, heart pounding, only to see Bobby at a table, drinking a can of soda.  
“Jesus Christ, Drake,” she breathed. “You scared the shit out of me.”  
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Can’t sleep?”  
“No,” she said, taking the seat opposite him. “Can I have some soda?” He reached under the table and passed her a can, freshly chilled. “Thanks.”  
“What Alex said earlier,” Bobby said. “About us becoming X-Men. All being fairly powerful.” He ran his finger across the tabletop, leaving a dusting of frost in its wake. “He didn’t mean me, right?”  
Beth shrugged. “I think you’re probably quite powerful,” she said. “You just don’t quite know how to use your abilities yet.”  
“Maybe. Unlike you and Rachel, I don’t have people who can teach me to use them.” He sighed.  
Beth cocked her head. “I’ve just had to get Laura through some existential dread, don’t tell me I’m going to have to do the same to you now,” she said. “What’s the matter, Bob?”  
“I don’t know.” He curled up in his seat. “Moira and the X-Men talk up a big game about us being better than humans somehow, but…” He left a handprint in frost on the table. “Not all of us are. Touching me for too long hurts, Beth. I really like Kitty. She’s great. But I couldn’t ever be with her, not…” He looked up suddenly in shock, remembering who he was talking to. “Oh my god, Beth, I’m sorry.”  
She shook her head and gave him a small smile. “It’s ok. Marian and I have come to terms with it.” She took Bobby’s wrist, and splayed her hand against his, before pulling away as the cold began to burn. “I’m sure you and Kitty, or whoever, could figure something out.”  
“Thanks, mom,” Bobby grumbled, and Beth laughed aloud. “Anyway, we’re not going to get to sleep at this rate. You wanna go play some games?”  
Beth nodded. “That’s not a bad idea,” she smiled. As they made their way to the games room she continued, “God above, do you know how difficult it is to be mum to all seven of you? My children are all broken inside and dating each other.”  
“And you, in Marian’s case,” Bobby pointed out.  
“Hmm, don’t like this analogy anymore.”

**Robert Drake  
Country of origin: United States of America (New York).  
Mutation (primary): Energy destruction.  
Mutation (secondary): ???  
Mutation (tertiary): ???  
Power class (primary): Omega.  
Power class (secondary): Omega.  
Power class (tertiary): Omega.**

“You want a weekend off the island?” Logan asked incredulously. “Despite how dangerous you know it is?”  
“Please, dad,” Laura pleaded. “I’m going to be with the others.”  
Logan narrowed his eyes. “I wouldn’t call any of them but you combat ready,” he said. It was just the two of them in the kitchen, the lights inside making it feel cozy despite the grey drizzle outside the window.  
“Beth’s responsible,” Laura argued.  
“The rest of them are not. Look, Laura, I want you to go. Trust me, nobody deserves it more than you.  
“But?” She asked, tapping her foot.  
Logan sighed. “I made promises. To Sarah. To Moira. To myself. Not to let you fall into Kimura's hands again.”  
“I'm in my own hands,” Laura growled. “I don't need to be condescended to and coddled.”  
Logan stood up and leaned on the counter, grinding his teeth. “Fine. You can go. But I'm coming with you. No, Laura, I am. I won't stay too close, don't worry. But if things go bad, which I'll concede is extremely unlikely, I'll step in and the trip is over. Got it?”  
Laura beamed. “Thanks Dad,” she said.  
“Yeah, yeah, don't mention it.”

Marian groggily opened her eyes and glanced around Beth’s bedroom. She felt serene here, and the world seemed so separate from her; wrapped in blankets and secure from the cold and dreary weather that was Muir Island’s norm. The sky outside was still grey from last night’s storm, and the small yellow light the lamp emitted as she switched it on did little to brighten the room up, instead casting a small circle of light over the bed. Marian looked down at the floor, where Beth lay on the camping mattress, snoring. Her purple hair was half covering her face, a few strands waving back and forth with each breath, her eyes closed and lips slightly parted to allow the snores to ring around the room. Marian stifled a laugh at the sight, not really knowing why. She looked back out at the sky and the drizzle of rain that it poured down upon Muir Island. Across the street was the village shop, little yellow lights showing in the windows as Mrs Paige Guthrie set up shop for the day. She and Beth had only yesterday spent most of their allowance on a new pair of gloves there, a perfect fit for Marian, which they had excitedly shown off to the others down at the beach. The gloves were on the bedside table now, soft and comforting in their presence. Marian pulled them on, admiring the pleasant shade of cream that contrasted with her pale skin. She pulled Beth’s bedside clock towards her and swore silently upon seeing the time.  
Silently, she slipped out of bed, hastily pulling the sheets back up to the pillow, gingerly stepped over Beth to get to her clothes, making sure to avoid accidentally brushing against her, and tried to open the cupboard without it creaking, a task at which she was surprisingly successful. She pulled them on slowly, trying not to wake the sleeper at her feet. Beth stirred anyway, cracking her eyes open a hair. “What’s the time?” She mumbled.  
“Nine,” Marian whispered. “I’m going to the gym.”  
“Ok,” Beth yawned, pushing herself to a sitting position. “You gonna be back in?”  
Marian shook her head. “No. Is that alright?”  
“It’s fine,” Beth said through another yawn. “See you later sweetheart.”  
Marian smiled awkwardly, pulling on her jacket over the gym clothes. “See you around, honey,” she whispered back, and pushed the door open into the silent corridor. She pulled the jacket tighter around her, shivering slightly at the sudden cold. Unlike the rooms, the corridors of the dorm building were poorly heated, with uncarpeted floors and paint that was starting to peel. She remembered Beth asking Emma Frost about it a few weeks ago, which had resulted in a fairly boring lecture about how tight Emma was on funds these days, and that the X-Men had more important projects than refurbishing the less important areas of the dorm building. Upon being shown the state of the corridors, however, she had curled her lip and promised that she would make an attempt to get them fixed up. So far, nothing had come of it.  
Marian tiptoed to the stairwell, peering four stories down to the concrete ground floor. A wicked thought occurred to her, and she glanced around her, grinning. No one in sight. She stepped up to the railing, took a deep breath, and vaulted over. The rush of wind through her ponytail. A sudden weightlessness in her stomach. She hit the floor, bracing her legs and slamming her palm into the concrete as she came down. The floor audibly cracked.  
She straightened up, startled and staring at the cracks in the floor. “Marian!” A voice yelled from out of sight. “That you?”  
Marian sprinted. She rushed through the corridors, whipping around the tight turns, and was out the door in seconds and pounding down the road toward the gym, rain forming dew in her hair as it whipped around behind her. Panting, she checked her modified fitbit, and grinned as she passed thirty miles per hour. She leapt and whirled, making almost impossible turns around sharp bends, jumping clear over bushes and railings, the only thoughts in her head the road beneath her feet and her destination, almost all the way on the other side of town.  
She skidded to a halt outside the gym, dripping with rainwater and panting for breath. Laura was waiting under a glass shelter that jutted out from above the door, wearing a grin and also dressed to work out. Noticing the smile, Marian cocked her head.  
“Dad says we can do the trip,” she explained. “As long as he’s there too.” She raised her hand, and Marian high-fived her. They turned and made their way in. “What were you thinking of doing today?”  
Marian shrugged. “Was gonna start at half a tonne and go from there. You?”  
Laura, who had almost choked at the word ‘tonne’, blinked and shook her head. “Uh. I was just gonna do some stuff on the rowing machines. You do you, though.”

**Marian Carlyle  
Country of origin: United States of America (Alabama).  
Mutation (primary): Skin to skin incapacitation/memory and ability absorption.  
Mutation (secondary): Superhuman strength, reflexes, and durability.  
Power class (primary): Beta.  
Power class (secondary): Gamma.**

“Laura, uh, convinced me to let her and her friends off the island for a weekend, on the condition that I go with them,” Logan explained. The council looked to each other wordlessly.  
“I see no issue in this,” Sage said with a shrug. “If you are with them, they will be perfectly safe.”  
Moira cleared her throat. “I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we are currently in a period of extremely high tension,” she said tersely. “Having one of our most effective covert agents and fighters off the island, not to mention having to watch over the eight most difficult children on the island, is going to be a major thorn in our side.”  
“Surely we can put things on hold, just for a weekend?” Scott asked. Moira shook her head.  
“Magneto is searching for us as we speak. We cannot afford to lapse in vigilance.”  
“If I may,” Xorn interjected in his hollow voice, hands clasped before him. “It occurs to me that these children, in particular Laura Kinney, may only be as troublesome as they have been observed to be because they are bored on this island.” Hearing no arguments, he continued. “A change of scenery is exactly what they need. Moira is correct in that it comes at a most inopportune time, but we must make sure to keep care of our own as well as watch our borders, even at a time such as this.” He turned his helmeted head to Moira, and the blue glow in the eye sockets seemed to flare. “That is, after all, our mission.”  
Moira pursed her lips. “If this goes south, it’s on you, Logan,” she said. “And you’re taking Gambit.”  
“What?” Logan exclaimed. “Why?”  
“Remy is adept at dealing with children,” Sage said with a shrug. “He is also closer to their age than you.”  
“I’m a hundred and fifty years old!” Logan complained.  
“I think that was her point,” Emma said, clearly amused. “Besides, Logan, you don’t think you’ll be able to watch all eight of them by yourself?”  
“And Gambit’s any more responsible than any of them?” Logan snorted.  
“Under orders, he can be extremely disciplined,” said Scott. “And you work well with him.”  
Logan sighed, folding his arms. “Why can’t it be Hank or Warren?” He asked, surly.  
“I need Hank here to help me with a certain issue,” Moira informed him.  
“And Warren and I need to go over some plans to redecorate in the dorm building,” Emma chipped in. She frowned. “Moira, what do you mean, a certain issue?”  
Moira sighed again. “Except for Scott, I assume you all remember Operation Phoenix Killer?” A hush fell over the table. Even Scott, who had still been living in Alaska at the time and hadn’t taken part in the mission, fell quiet. Moira nodded. “Exactly. Our lives are becoming increasingly complicated.”

The Grey-Summers house was sunnily decorated. The wallpaper was various shades of yellow, as was most of the furniture. Jean had put a lot of thought into this after Nathan Christopher had been born, and the result was a perpetuating atmosphere of cheer. Rachel, at the time in her goth phase, had complained about this, but by now was perfectly happy with the arrangement. The goth had never entirely left her, and her heavy leather jacket was decked with spikes and chains, but she didn’t insist on her hair covering her face anymore.  
“Logan tells me that you’re going to Edinburgh for the weekend,” Scott mentioned over lunch. Rachel and Alex nodded, mouths too crammed full of food to speak. Scott scowled. “You know,” he said. “It would be nice if we could sit down and have a proper family meal in this house. Rather than you two shoveling as much food down your throats as possible because you want to be somewhere else.”  
Rachel and Alex gave each other guilty looks, chewed for a few seconds, swallowed, and then in unison said, “Sorry.”  
“It’s ok,” Jean assured them, throwing Scott a quick wordless glance. She had been trying to feed Nathan a spoonful of yogurt, but the five year old clearly had other ideas, and had both his eyes and his mouth squeezed shut, but had finally conceded defeat and put the spoon down. “Scott and I would be lying if we said we would do differently.”  
Scott huffed, and Jean sighed at her husband. “He has a point, though. It feels like we hardly speak to you anymore.”  
“It’s just…” Alex began, searching for words. “We aren’t your kids, and it can sometimes feel like…”  
“Maybe you’re not, but mom and dad entrusted me to take care of you,” Scott interrupted. “And Jean’s parents would have done the same for you if they could have, Rachel.”  
“You don’t know that!” Rachel exclaimed.  
“No, but I do,” Jean said firmly. “But I understand. You’re not kids anymore, and we’re not your parents. You’d rather be out with friends.”  
Scott continued scowling, but didn’t argue. “Anyway,” he carried on. “Edinburgh?”  
“Sure,” Rachel said, still glaring daggers at Scott when he wasn’t looking. “We needed to get Laura off the island for a bit. She’s bored out of her mind here.”  
“Laura! Kitty!” Nathan exclaimed. Jean, seeing the opportunity, forced a spoonful of yogurt into his mouth.  
“Uh, yeah, Laura,” Rachel continued. Laura and Kitty had occasionally babysat for Nathan when he had been younger. “Anyway, apparently she managed to get that past Logan.”  
“Good for her,” Scott said, smiling. “Poor girl hasn’t had much childhood.” A dark expression crossed his face, but he shook himself out of it. “Well, we’ll help you pack later.”  
“Thanks,” Alex said. He prodded his food with his fork. “And sorry.”  
“It’s fine,” Scott conceded. “But… just don’t leave us behind, ok?”

**Alexander Summers  
Country of origin: United States of America (Alaska).  
Mutation: Passive absorption of ambient electromagnetic radiation and redirection as plasma.  
Power class: Alpha.**

The rest of the week passed slowly and with much rain, and by its end Laura was entirely fed up and more desperate than ever for the trip. Her room, usually highly ordered and generally bare, now had clothes strewn about it, and Sarah regularly had to come in to help her figure out what she should wear, which usually consisted of frantically texting Ororo for her expert fashion advice, which was usually met with horror at Laura’s spartan and frankly boring wardrobe.  
“You still have the t-shirt with the rainbow and unicorn on it,” she said, holding it up the day before Laura was due to leave. “Do you really still need this?”  
“Of course,” Laura snapped, snatching it. “It’s important to me. For emotional reasons.”  
“I see.” Sarah placed it in the suitcase. “And these jeans are torn to shreds.”  
“They came like that,” Laura shrugged, leaning down from where she perched on the bed to examine them. “Rachel bought them for my birthday. They’re fashionable.”  
Sarah snorted. “Well, if you say so. My, Laura, look at how you’ve grown.”  
Laura cocked her head and frowned. “Have I? These all still fit.”  
Sarah chuckled and shook her head. “I don’t mean that,” she said. “Look at you. Five years ago, you’d never have worn jeans for practicality’s sake. And now you’re defending them.”  
“They’re from Rachel,” she said sullenly, folding them and placing them on top of the t-shirt. “They’re important. For emotional reasons.”  
Sarah smiled and turned her face away. A tear ran down her nose, and she sniffed. “You’ve grown a lot, Laura,” she said softly. “We’re very proud. Me and Logan and Ororo. You’ve done well.”  
“Thank… you,” Laura replied slowly, starting to understand what Sarah meant. “I’m… a different person now.”  
“Yes,” Sarah said, holding back more tears. “You truly are.”  
She opened her mouth, trying to think of something else to say, but Kitty suddenly poked her head around the door. “Hi!” She said brightly. “Hello, Mrs Kinney. Laura, do you want to come choose your hotel room?”  
Laura’s ears pricked up. “We get separate rooms?” She asked.  
“Well, kind of. We’re rooming together. I’m letting you choose though, because the trip’s for you, and, uh, I’ll forget if I choose on my own.”  
“Sure!” Laura said, getting up from the bed. “See you for dinner, mom?”  
“See you at dinner,” Sarah said warmly. “Good to see you, Kitty.”  
“You too Mrs Kinney!” Kitty called as she and Laura rushed off through the house. Sarah smiled as they left, and wiped the tears from her eyes.  
“Your mom looked sad,” Kitty mentioned as she and Laura walked down to road toward the dorm building.  
“Did she?” Laura sounded confused. “Oh. I’m still bad at- at reading people. Maybe I haven’t changed that much.”  
“That’s bull,” Kitty snorted. “I mean, it’s not like you wake up in the middle of the night screaming anymore.”  
Laura froze. Kitty whirled as her friend started to hyperventilate, her pupils blown wide, hands balled tightly into fists, jaw clenched and trembling. Kitty heard the sound of metal grating on bone, and Laura’s claws slid out of her hands. Her entire body had locked up, muscles taut with fear, breathing shallow and ragged. “Laura? Oh god, Laura.” Kitty gripped her by the shoulders, and barely phased into intangibility before adamantium passed through her abdomen. “Laura, look at me,” she hissed. “It’s Kitty. Your best friend. Do you want me to get Logan?” Laura managed a tiny nod. “Alright. I’ll find Logan.”  
She took off toward the dorm building, sprinting now, belly a mixture of fright and apprehension. “Shit,” she hissed to herself. “Shit, shit, shit.” They had nearly been at the dorm, thank god, but Kitty’s feelings were hardly eased, least of all those directed at herself. She _ knew _ Laura had PTSD. She knew which triggers set her off, and which topics to avoid. She even knew to become intangible when Laura was having them to stop her from accidentally causing injury, but she hadn’t thought about what she was saying, and now Laura could be in serious danger from herself, and Logan might cancel the trip, and it would all be Kitty’s stupid fault, because she hadn’t had the presence of mind to keep her best friend safe.  
She rushed straight through the wall of the dorm and pounded towards the lounge, where a crowd of six people were clustered around Logan, jotting things down on a notepad. They all looked up as Kitty burst in, surprised. “She’s…” Kitty gasped, panting for breath. “Logan. She…”  
Logan was already up and headed out. “Stay here!” He called over his shoulder. “I’ll be back in a bit!”  
“But you don’t know where she is!” Kitty called.  
“I recognise my own daughter’s scent by now, I’ll be fine!” He slammed the door behind him, and Kitty heard him sprinting down the hall. She turned back to her friends, who were all looking at her in shock.  
Kurt cleared his throat. “Ah…” he started. “What… happened?”  
Kitty shook her head and flopped onto a beanbag. “I… did something dumb,” she mumbled. “I don’t think I should-”  
“She mentioned the nightmares,” Rachel interrupted. Kitty gave her a reproachful look.  
“Please don’t read my mind,” she said. “Yeah, I did that. Wasn’t thinking.” She tucked her knees up to her face. “Sorry.”  
“We’re not the ones to apologise to,” Beth said tersely. “But what’s done is done. Laura will understand; you don’t think about what you say.”  
“Thanks,” Kitty grunted. She rocked back and forth as the others returned to their seats, exchanging glances and sighs. Bobby sat beside her, the air chilled by his presence. She smiled at him. “Hi, Bob.”  
“Hi,” he whispered. “I know it wasn’t your fault.”  
Kitty sucked in air through her teeth. “It was though,” she sighed. “I know to watch what I say around Laura.” She looked sideways at him from behind the veil that her hair had formed before her face. “I want to help her, it’s just… I don’t know, it’s just…”  
“There’s so much to help with.”  
“Sure. Yeah. I always underestimate how broken she is, and then something like this happens, or she vanishes for days at a time, or… I don’t know, remember the time she tried to remove her own claws?”  
Bobby shuddered. “So much blood,” he muttered. “But what can we do? Beth and Rachel can’t get into her head. She’s seen horrible things… done horrible things.”  
“She had no choice,” Kitty snapped. “The poor thing couldn’t have said no if she’d wanted to.”  
“Hey, I wasn’t-” Bobby started, but as he trailed off the doors were flung open by Logan, closely followed by Laura.  
“Kitty, come here,” he barked. “Got somethin’ important to talk to you about.”  
“Oh- ok,” Kitty gulped. She gave Bobby a weak smile, pushed herself to her feet, and followed Logan and Laura back out the door into the canteen, where Logan pointed her to a seat at a nearby table. She gulped and took it, hands shaking. Laura took the chair beside her, still and silent, and Logan sat opposite them. He heaved a deep sigh.  
“Obviously, this is important,” he said gravely. “Something’s come up, at the hotel. I’m gonna have to put the two of you at the end of the corridor, which from the motel floor plan I illegally downloaded from the internet is right next to the fire escape. You two had better be careful around that, ok? Don’t know what could get in.”  
Kitty blinked. “But don’t you-” she started, then reconsidered. “I see. Thank you, Logan.”  
“Don’t mention it, kid,” Logan said with an awkward smile. “You two better get back to the others. They’ll be getting up to all sorts. Anyway, I’d better go tell Moira that everything’s going to plan.”  
He tipped his hat to them, and strolled out of the dorm, whistling to himself and adjusting the collar of his leather jacket. Kitty blinked again. “What was that about?” She asked.  
“Our room,” Laura shrugged.  
“No, dumby, I meant the whole glossing over the fact that you just… you know.”  
Laura frowned. “Yes, that _ was _ a bit odd, even by Dad’s standards. Maybe he just doesn’t see the use in telling you off.”  
Kitty felt a huge pang of guilt. “Oh, god, Laura, I’m so sorry…”  
“Oh, it’s fine. You don’t think before you speak. You’re still my best friend.” She smiled at her. “You were really worried there, weren’t you?”  
Kitty wrinkled her nose. “It isn’t funny, Laura.”  
“Don’t I know it. Come on, Beth probably wants to fuss over me and ask me a bunch of unnecessarily probing questions.”  
“I heard that!” Beth yelled from the lounge.  
“You’ve upset mom,” Kitty joked.  
_ And that! _ A voice rang through her head. Kitty winced at the sudden mental intensity.  
“You need to work on that,” she said, rubbing her head as the momentary headache subsided and Laura dragged her back to the lounge. “Rachel can do it without giving me an aneurysm.”  
“Rachel also regularly talks telepathically at home,” Beth sulked.  
“Maybe I’m just better than you,” Rachel suggested, a half smirk across her face.  
“You’re a pain in the ass is what you are.”  
“Not contesting that fact.”

**Rachel Grey  
Country of origin: United States of America (Nebraska).  
Mutation: Psionics (telepathy, telekinesis).  
Power class: Alpha, Omega.**

“I don’t like flying,” said Laura sullenly, hunkering down in her seat. Logan looked over at her quizzically.  
“How many times have you been on a plane, anyway?” He asked. “Three?”  
Laura nodded. She didn’t look at him, as that would involve seeing the window on the other side of him, and that would involve looking down. Laura hatedflying. The X-Men’s jets weren’t the height of luxury, designed for speed and efficiency over comfort, and were all hard metal and glass, which reminded her a little too much of her time before. The other kids were all perfectly happily seated and buckled in as Remy chatted to them from the pilot’s seat, but Laura was tucked up in a ball, wearing a pout and rocking back and forth slightly. Logan patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine,” he assured her. “There are bags if you feel like being sick. I need to go help Remy with the controls. You gonna be ok?”  
“Fine,” she muttered.  
Logan gave her an encouraging smile and made his way to the front of the plane. “Gambit,” he grunted.  
“Wolverine,” Remy replied curtly as Logan sat down and strapped himself in. “I’ve radioed the airport. They’re expecting us.”  
“Good.” Logan started flicking switches. “This is your captain speaking. Please make sure you’re strapped in and prepared for takeoff.” He waved at Hank out of the cockpit, who gave him a thumbs up. The jet shuddered and began to ascend. The roof of the hangar split open above them, revealing blue sky and fluffy white clouds. The engines juddered to life and took over as the platform the jet rested upon came to a stop. They ascended above the face of Muir Island. On the grass below, Ororo and Scott waved up at them. The rippling sea spread out on all sides, shimmering in the morning light. The village perched at the island’s northern reach, a few plumes of smoke rising from chimneys. Logan sighed, a smile crossing his face at the wonder spread out below him as the jet began to move. “Never gets old,” he said under his breath. He turned back to look at the kids, who were leaning back in their seats at the sudden acceleration. Laura had turned very pale and was panting, eyes wide. Kitty seemed to have noticed and was gently speaking to her, Laura occasionally nodding. Logan turned back to the controls. Remy was leaning back in his seat, eyes closed and wearing a contented smile. Following his lead, Logan got comfortable and took a nap.

“Room keys!” Logan called. “Come get ‘em!” He jangled the keyring that the motel’s greeter had flusteredly handed him before stepping well out of sight after seeing a gaggle of mutant children approaching from across the street.  
Logan admitted that he hadn’t picked the best part of town. It wasn’t by any means run down, but there were plenty of back alleys and shifty looking people standing at their edges giving him the stink eye. He was sure the kids wouldn’t be dumb enough to try and pick a fight with anyone, but he’d also once watched Hank chase Kurt halfway around Muir Island after the boy had stolen a sealed jar of highly concentrated acid from McCoy’s lab.  
He handed Kurt the key to his and Bobby’s room. “I’ll be round in a bit to make sure you’re behaving yourselves,” he told the kids, who he wasn’t entirely sure were listening to him. “Once I’m certain this place is secure, you can all do what you want.”  
He was met with a crowd of nodded heads and general assent, which quickly dispersed upstairs. Logan watched them go, and once he was certain they were out of sight stepped outside and lit up a cigar. Remy was already waiting for him. “Found anything?” He grunted.  
“Nah. Checked all over this place, there’s almost nothing even remotely dangerous in the whole building.”  
Logan nodded. “Good. Radio Moira, put her mind at ease. I’ll take first watch tonight.”

Laura pressed her face to the grimy glass of the bedroom window, mouth half opened in wonder as she took in the skyline. “You ok?” Kitty asked, crouching beside her.  
Laura nodded. “Yeah. I’m good. Never been in a city before.”  
“Ha!” Kitty laughed. “You should see New York! It’s bigger, and better, and probably dirtier but honestly you don’t notice that after a while.” She flopped on her bed, humming to herself. “I found a place we can go later. A nightclub not too far away. Everyone seems down.”  
Laura nodded absently. “Hmm. Yeah. For dancing and things?”  
“Yeah, a bit like that,” Kitty nodded. “I think you’d be good at dancing. You’re quite good at moving around quickly and quietly and stuff.”  
“I suppose we’ll find out later.” She half smiled to herself. “This is good. I’m enjoying this.”  
“Good!” Kitty said with a grin. “I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. We’ll be great at this. You’re gonna love it so much.”

_ One and a half hours later.  
_ Laura stood at the centre of the nightclub, stunned. Bright lights in many colours flashed above her head, loud music pumped out of huge speakers, and all around her people danced, spun, laughed, and twirled. She was suddenly having very different thoughts about coming here, her belly churning with apprehension and sudden panic. Her already heightened senses seemed to be assaulted on all sides, and the crush of people ensnaring her was becoming more than a little uncomfortable.  
She looked helplessly around for her friends. Kurt and Rachel had snuck off to make out in the bathroom as soon as they were sure they weren’t being watched. Alex was in the middle of the dancefloor, furiously stamping his feet and twisting his body. Marian and Beth were off to the side, slow dancing in spite of the pace of the music, quite oblivious to everything around them. To Laura’s relief, Bobby and Kitty were still beside her, each giving her worried looks.  
“Laura?” Kitty’s voice cut through her daze, jolting her back to reality. “You don’t look so good.”  
“I’m… fine.” Laura shook her head. “You two go dance, or whatever. I need to clear my head.”  
“You sure?” Bobby asked. “We can come with.”  
“I’m fine,” Laura assured him. “Go on, I’ll join you later.”  
Kitty and Bobby exchanged concerned expressions, but seemed to decide that it was best to leave her to it. “Ok,” Kitty conceded. “But come to us if there’s trouble, ok?”  
“Sure.” Laura smiled nervously. “I’ll be fine.”  
She pushed her way through the sea of people she didn’t know, trying not to think about it too much. She smiled to Beth as she passed her, receiving a puzzled frown in response, but she didn’t try to talk.  
Laura settled herself at a fairly nondescript patch of wall at the opposite end of the club to the bar, leaning back and folding her arms. She smiled wanly, watching her friends. Kitty and Bobby had joined Alex now, close together, but not too close occasionally making accidental eye contact and looking away, embarrassed. It was almost comical, but watching made Laura feel like an intruder, so she turned her head away and scanned the other people in the crowd. For the most part, they were fairly uninteresting. A few showed symptoms of extreme intoxication, who were amusing to observe for a short time. A handful were clearly high, and Laura made a small game out of trying to guess exactly what it was they were jacked up on. These people quickly lost her interest, however, after she took note of a boy. He was slouched a few meters away from her, on the same length of wall, and very deliberately trying not to look at her. She appraised him out of the corner of her eye, taking interest. She guessed he was about her own age, perhaps a year or so younger, and to her eyes quite pretty. He was short, maybe a little shorter than her, and despite his brown skin had a shock of long silver-white hair. She cocked her head, remembering what Kitty had said about finding a boyfriend. _ What the hell, _ she thought to herself. _ You’re never going to see him again after this. _ On the dancefloor, she saw Beth’s head whip around to face her, eyebrow raised. Laura made a rude gesture at her, and awkwardly sidled up to the boy. He was even better looking up close, with high cheekbones, a well defined jaw, and hazel eyes that he kept trained on the floor as she approached.  
Laura cleared her throat, not sure what to say or do. “Uhm. Hi.”  
The boy turned to face her, smiling as awkwardly as she felt. “Hi?”  
Laura stuck out her hand. “I’m Laura,” she said. “Uh. Nice to meet you?”  
The boy took the hand, looking a little perplexed. “I’m Pietro,” he said. Laura noted that his accent wasn’t Scottish, nor would she expect it to be with a name like ‘Pietro’, but after a moment’s deliberation decided to leave this fact alone. They were both silent for a second. “So…” he said after things became too awkward. “I saw you were with them?” He pointed to Alex, Bobby, and Kitty, all of whom did a bad job of hiding the fact that they’d been staring at the two of them only a moment previously.  
“Oh, yeah,” Laura said quickly. “They’re my friends. The blond one is Alex. The other two are Bobby and Kitty.” She paused. “Are you with anyone?”  
“I have… some people with me,” Pietro said.  
“That sounds mysterious,” Laura replied, voice still fast and shaky but growing used to talking to the stranger.  
“Oh, sorry,” Pietro said. He glanced up at her, making brief eye contact. They both glanced away immediately, too awkward to maintain the look. “They’re all in the toilets right now. I’ll show you them when they come out.” Another awkward pause. “So… uhm. What’s an American girl doing here?”  
“Canadian,” Laura corrected gently. “I don’t get out much. My friends and me, we live in a small village. Not a lot of excitement. We thought it would be nice to take a trip, now that we can go places on our own.”  
“Oh. Right.” Pietro started tapping his foot. Laura sniffed the air, trying to read his hormones as best she could. It was a difficult feat, which even Logan, who had long ago mastered it, advised against for its inaccuracy. She frowned. Pietro was if anything getting more anxious as they chatted, and now that she was paying attention she did see sweat beading on his brow as his eyes darted to and fro across the room.  
“Pietro,” she said gently. “If you’d rather not talk-”  
“No, no!” Pietro exclaimed. “I don’t mind that at all. It’s just, ah…” He wrung his hands. “Fuck, I can’t do this. You have to get out of here. It isn’t safe. My father, he-”  
As Pietro spoke, the lights and music cut out. Laura whirled to him, eyes flaring. Her fist swung out, ready to knock him down, but in a split second he reacted, catching the hand and ducking undr the arm. “You’re a mutant,” Laura snarled. The awkward tone and casual demeanor were gone. Laura was in her element now. She _ knew _ how to deal with this. “Who’s your father? What’s going on?”  
A scream went up around the club as the doors were flung open and the rattle of gunfire replaced the music, equally loud but twice as shocking. “I’m sorry,” Pietro said. There was genuine sadness in his voice. “I don’t want this either. I’m so-”  
“Later,” Laura snapped as dark figures rushed into the club, barking orders and forcing people onto the ground, guns tracking over the terrified people. Laura gritted her teeth. _ Rachel, _ she thought. _ Talk to Kitty and Kurt. Get yourselves out of here, and then get Logan and Remy.  
_ _ I won’t leave you here, _ Rachel shot back.  
_ You aren’t getting a choice. I can deal with this situation fine by myself.  
_ Silence from Rachel, and then Laura saw Kitty grab Bobby and Alex’s hands as the three sunk into the floor. The room filled with purple smoke and the reek of brimstone, and a moment later Beth and Marian had vanished as well. Laura hunkered down, close to the wall, and began trying to sneak round the edge of the club. A flashlight caught her in its beam, and she swore as the man holding it barked, “On your feet! Show me your face!” at her.  
Laura straightened up, staring straight into the spot she guessed the man’s eyes were behind the flashlight glare. Another figure turned to face her, and the bottom dropped out of Laura’s stomach as she saw their face. “Oh, X-23,” Kimura drawled. “It has been such a very long time.”  
Several things happened at once. First, Pietro, almost too fast for the eye to catch, rushed up to the man training his flashlight on Laura and knocked him to the ground. Next, there was a loud _ ‘BAMF’ _, followed by a plume of smoke, as Logan and Remy appeared in the centre of the room, one with claws unsheathed, the other holding a deck of playing cards. Thirdly, Kimura raised a gun and shot Laura squarely between the eyes.

Laura gradually became aware of a low rumbling sound. She felt her head lolling on her shoulder, and through her bleary eyes flashes of light across the inside of a large metal box. She gritted her teeth and shook her head, trying to return to her senses. _ Club. Kimura. Bullet.  
_ Her eyes snapped wide open and she tried to leap to her feet, only to be restrained by a chain tied to her ankle. She landed flat on her face, breaking her nose, and swore under her breath. She looked up again, taking stock of her situation. The light was coming from a metal grill at the top of one of the box’s walls. The rumble, upon closer inspection, was traffic. She was on the road. Her vision panned back down to the floor, and her nostrils flared at the sight of the person tied up on the other side of the cell.  
“You alright?” They asked cautiously.  
Laura growled. “Worse for seeing you,” she said sharply. “Pietro. That actually your name?” He nodded. “What are you doing here?”  
He shrugged. “I tried to help you. Which broke the contract my father had with Kimura. I’d just been there to tell them when they could come in and get you. I was given over to her in recompense.”  
Laura paused, reevaluating. “Ah.” She sat back up, tucking her knees up to her chin. Her arms were bound behind her back, making it difficult to get comfortable, but she managed to find a position that wasn’t entirely painful. “Who’s your father? Magneto?”  
Pietro bit his lip. “Yeah, actually.”  
Laura leaned forward, frowning. “And he just let Weapon X have you? You do mean he’s your real dad right?” Pietro gave her a small nod. “Fuck. I’m… sorry about that.”  
“I…” Pietro looked down and buried his face in his knees. “I don’t know why he hates me so much. He’s fine to my sisters. I just…”  
“I understand,” Laura said softly. “Most of the people who raised me were… not kind.” She drummed her heels on the floor. “What happened? In the club?”  
“They shot you. The X-Men who were there tried to get to you, but Kimura reached you first. Then she radioed my father...and here we are.”  
“Right.”  
There was silence for a while. Laura leaned back, squeezing her eyes closed and trying to will her headache into non existence. Pietro started humming to himself. Laura let him. It was best for him to have some form of escape before Kimura beat it out of him.  
It was over an hour before they stopped moving. The sounds of other traffic had faded long ago. Laura looked up, watching as one wall of the box split open down the middle, shining a ray of faded sunshine into the interior. A woman stepped up, framed against the clouded sky, wearing a wide grin upon her face. A gun at her belt. Wearing a Weapon X jumpsuit. “X-23,” Kimura grinned. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long.”  
“The X-Men will find you,” Laura informed her. “And when they do, you will die a tragic and pitiful death, begging on your knees.”  
“Still so rude!” Kimura exclaimed. “That won’t do. I’ll have to make sure you don’t carry on like that.” She turned back towards the outside. “Get them out. We can start here. Mind the girl’s hands and feet, and the boy is faster than he looks.”  
She jumped back down from the van, and Laura and Pietro were quickly bungled out of the van and onto a dirt path. Laura managed a quick glimpse of towering hills and a small river, caught the scent of wildflowers and clear air, but a sack was pulled over her head and she was soon being dragged over the dirt by callous hands. She could hear Pietro kicking and yelling, but Laura didn’t bother. She heard a metal door being pulled open, and the hood was ripped off her head before she was dropped down a hole into a new cell, lightless save what little filtered in from the hatch she had been dropped through. The light was briefly obscured as Pietro was thrown in after her. He landed on top of her with a heavy thud, knocking the wind out of both of them. The hatch slammed shut, leaving them alone in the dark. Somewhere above her, Laura heard Kimura laughing, but the sound soon faded.  
Pietro rolled himself off her. “Sorry,” he muttered.  
“It’s fine,” she sighed. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark quickly, and after a few seconds she was just about able to make out Pietro’s form in the darkness. “Hold on. Turn around.”  
He paused. “Why?”  
“I’m going to cut your handcuffs.”  
He started shuffling his body around. “Can you see?”  
“I have enhanced senses. Tertiary mutation.” She unsheathed the claw of her left foot, and carefully severed the rope connecting his hands.  
“Thanks.” He massaged his wrists. “Do you want me to help with yours?”  
“If you can, yes. It will require you to break my leg.”  
“Oh.”  
“It really isn’t as hard as you’d think, and it won’t last. I’ll walk you through it.”  
After about a quarter of an hour of extreme contortion, Laura managed to hook her foot claw around the rope binding her wrists, and soon had the bindings free from both her own and Pietro’s arms. She lay down on her back, letting her leg heal.  
“What now?” Pietro asked. “How do we get out?”  
“Wait for the X-Men,” Laura grunted. “Don’t be under any illusions, they were expecting us to remove the cuffs.”  
“Oh.”  
“In the meantime, try to get some sleep. Kimura isn’t what you’d call accommodating. You’ll want as much rest as you can get.”  
Pietro settled down a few meters away from her. “I’m sorry about what they did to you,” he sighed.  
“It’s ancient history,” Laura said. She gazed up to where the light shone through the cracks at the edge of the hatch above them. “I’m sorry that Magneto has to be your dad.”  
“Yeah.” She heard him roll away from her. “So am I.”

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Moira seethed. She was the only member of the council currently standing, leaning forward over the table, eyes trained on Logan. “Anything at all?”  
“No.” Logan kept his head bowed. His hands were folded in his lap. “Other than that it was my own fault.”  
“Damn fucking straight,” Moira snarled. “I told you it was a mistake. I told you the benefits wouldn’t outway the risks. And now we have lost Laura, your own child, and we don’t yet know how to find her.”  
“We’re working on it though, right?” Logan looked up. There was a glint in his eye, something Moira had not seen in many years. A white hot rage, the rage of a cornered animal. She faltered. It had been so long since she had seen Logan like this. Furious at the world, both within and without. She straightened up.  
“We have a lead,” she confirmed. “The other child you sighted at the club. I met him in several of my previous lives. His name is Pietro Maximoff. He’s Magneto’s son.”  
“Magneto is likely working in tandem with Weapon X to some extent,” reasoned Sage. “If we find Magneto, he can lead us to Laura Kinney.”  
Moira nodded. “Exactly. Fortunately, I believe that we are nearing a breakthrough with regards to Magneto’s location.” She sat back down. “And this time, I’m going to finish the job.”


	6. Chapter 5, Omega

_Three and a half months later._  
“Fracture her skull.”  
“No.”  
Kimura smacked Pietro over the head with a police baton. He dropped to the ground, and Laura stumbled forward from where she stood at the opposite end of the shooting range, only to drop to the ground with a cry as her right kneecap was shot out. “Down,” Kimura snarled. “X-24, fracture X-23’s skull.” Pietro looked up at her with red eyes. She held his pitiful gaze, curling her lip. “X-24,” she said, voice low and menacing. “Fracture X-23’s skull.” Pietro continued to stare at her in defiance for a moment, but the crack of the baton against his neck was enough to put him down. Weeping, he nodded.  
“I’m sorry,” he murmured to Laura. She smiled wanly, and in less than a second he brought his fist down onto her head with a sickening crack.  
Kimura smirked. “Good boy. I think you’re coming along nicely, X-24.”  
Pietro glared at her, before passing out from his own head injury.

Seven people sat around a dinner table as the rain outside beat against the windows. There was occasional chatter, but it was only punctuation in the thick silence that hung over them. Bobby was usually the one to start it, trying to sound cheerful. Beth or Alex would be the one to join in, trying to rope the others into the discussion. The others might answer a question, even say a full sentence, but were otherwise unspeaking. Throughout the meal, Marian’s lips moved only to accommodate her food and drink. Kurt and Rachel laughed at jokes before catching themselves and returning to a state of quiet. Kitty was uncharacteristically silent. This had been the arrangement for months, and all seven were becoming sick of it.  
“Fine,” said Bobby in exasperation, after yet another joke had fallen flat. “I’ll come out and fucking say it. We’re all blaming ourselves.”  
“Obviously I’m blaming myself,” snapped Rachel. “If I’d ignored what she’d told me to do, I could have stopped them. She’d be here, instead of rotting in some cell somewhere.”  
“You can’t take all the blame,” Beth said gently.  
“Why the fuck not? It’s my fault.” Rachel jerked her head, and her plate shot into the air before coming to an abrupt stop, food frozen half way through dropping to the table. “I’m a fucking Omega-Class mutant, and I stood by and let that shit happen to her.”  
“And imagine if Weapon X had got their hands on you,” Bobby argued. “Imagine if it were you rotting in that cell. If they had an Omega of their own.”  
“And imagine if they’d got their hands on none of us!” Rachel snarled.  
“You weren’t the reason!” Bobby yelled, standing up. “Laura made the decision she did for a reason, and if Logan and Remy couldn’t have dealt with it, then there’s no way-”  
Rachel pushed herself to her feet and stuck her hand out. Bobby was flung backwards, impacting the wall with a thud and remaining pinned there. Rachel continued rising, levitating off the ground. “Do you have any idea, Drake?” She roared. The other kids in the dining hall had taken notice now and were staring at Rachel, agog. “Do you have any fucking clue what it’s like to be able to do things like this and be completely helpless to help the people who matter to you the most?”  
“Rachel!” Alex and Beth exclaimed in unison, getting to their feet. Kurt was standing too. His hand was on Rachel’s shoulder as he desperately tried to calm her down, but to no avail. Kitty and Marian were on her feet now, not sure what to do with themselves.  
“Get off… me…” Bobby gasped. A chill had filled the room, and Rachel looked down at her hand to see frost forming on her fingers. She yelped and dropped Bobby, who gasped as he crashed to the floor, trying to get his breath back. Rachel had her hand in her armpit, face screwed up in pain as feeling slowly returned to her digits. Her plate and food had crashed to the table, and her eyes were trained on Bobby as Kitty checked him for injuries.  
“I’m going,” she muttered.  
“You gonna tell Jean?” Alex asked.  
Rachel snorted and shook her head. “And you’d all do well not to, either.” She stormed out, head held high.  
“You gonna let her get away with that?” Beth hissed. Alex shrugged.  
“I doubt it would make a whole lot of difference either way,” he said wearily. “We’re all pissed and stressed. And she has a point.”  
“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Beth huffed. “Fine. I’ll try and get her to apologise.” She looked over at Bobby. “You ok, Bob?” She called.  
“I’m… fine.” Bobby was staring down at his hand, over which had formed a thick layer of ice. As he moved his fingers, a crackling sound accompanied the movement as the ice snapped and reshaped to accommodate the digits. “What the hell is up with this?”

** Kurt Wagner **  
** Country of origin: Germany.**  
** Mutation (primary): Point to point interdimensional teleportation.**  
** Mutation (secondary): Highly athletic physical form, prehensile tail, ability to stick to surfaces.**  
** Power class (primary): Alpha.**  
** Power class (secondary): Gamma.**

Beneath Muir Island, a vast sphere of metal and glass pulsed with electrical energy. Arcs of bright lightning leapt between the aluminium plates. Before they could ever reach the platform at the sphere’s centre, they were grounded to a series of carbon rods that ringed the two people that stood upon it.  
“How close are we?” Logan asked. Emma shook her head, eyes closed.  
“It is immensely difficult to tell,” she murmured. “He has found a way to scatter his psionic signature.” She wearily removed the Cerebro headset. “He could be in any of twelve locations around the globe. Or perhaps even none of them.” Logan grumbled under his breath, and Emma turned to him, pity in her eyes. “We’re close, Logan. And once we find him, I promise I will lead you to Kimura.”  
“Every second that goes by, she could be being beaten!” Logan said, exasperated. “Please, is twelve the best you can do?”  
“I’m sorry, Logan.”  
“Shit, it ain’t your fault. I’m headed out. Gotta find something to take all this out on.”  
“Don’t worry,” Emma reiterated. “When we find them, I shall personally see to Kimura’s lobotomization.”  
Logan smiled slightly, as though his facial muscles didn’t really know what to do with themselves. “Alright.” He turned and left the Cerebro unit, hands still stuffed into his pockets.  
They were close to Magneto now, and everyone could feel it. Obtaining his psionic signature had been the difficult part, but Moira had eventually been able to track down a telepath going by the moniker of Mesmero. Emma had none too gently ripped the information from the man’s mind, leaving him something of a broken wreck, who now lay in a cell in the lower layers of the skunkworks, spending most of his time in the fetal position and whimpering to himself. A new complication had arisen, and Emma had spent many hours in Cerebro only to pinpoint twelve locations in the world that Magneto could be, and even she wasn’t sure of that.  
Sighing, Logan left the skunkworks for a walk. The moors had become boggier since winter had begun, meaning that nobody else was likely to be out on them. As far as Logan was concerned, this was perfect.  
Hours went by as Logan trudged through the long grasses by himself, occasionally buffeted by strong wind and drenched by passing showers. His thoughts rested on Laura, as much as he didn’t want them to. Sometimes, he would pass a spot where they had picniced together or spent an afternoon, and he would stop for a time, lost in contemplation. Sometimes he would lean against one of the sparse trees that the island’s harsh climate only just allowed and stare into the middle distance, or crouch at the precipice of a cliff and silently gaze into the thrashing water below.  
“Wandering again?” A voice above him asked.  
“Aye,” he grunted in response.  
The wind whistled, and Ororo settled herself on the clifftop beside him. “You know moping around like this won’t bring her back?” She said softly. Logan nodded. “It seems to me that you need to come in from the cold. Blaming yourself helps nobody.”  
“Won’t it?”  
“You aren’t the only one. Jean tells me that the others, her friends, are being just as hard on themselves as you.”  
“Jean tell you where to find me, too?”  
“As a matter of fact, she did. Logan, please. I won’t let you stay here when we’re perfectly happy to help you.”  
“Hmph.”  
“ _ Logan. _ ”  
“Fine. I just don’t want to talk.”  
Ororo smiled. “Then we won’t have to. Come, now.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel muttered. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”  
“I’m sorry for goading you,” replied Bobby  
They awkwardly stared at each other’s feet for a couple of seconds, before Beth cleared her throat. “Better?” She asked.  
“Sure,” they both grunted. Outside, the rain was just beginning to clear up, and Rachel looked out her window, lips pursed.  
“Bobby,” she asked. “I only narrowly avoided frostbite just earlier.”  
“Sorry,” he mumbled.  
“Don’t apologise.” Rachel turned back to him, a gleam in her eye. “Your mutation is finally coming into itself.” She reached out, offering him her hand. Beth raised her eyebrow, interested. Bobby gingerly placed his fingers on Rachel’s hand, and she smiled triumphantly. “You’re not cold anymore.”  
Bobby snatched his hand back. “What?” Beth stumbled forward and placed her hand on his upper arm.  
“My god,” she exclaimed under her breath.  
“What does this mean, though?” Bobby babbled. “Am I not a mutant anymore? Will it come back?”  
“How are we supposed to know?” Rachel shrugged. “If I were you I’d talk to Moira. She’ll know more about...you.”

Moira gave Bobby a smile not dissimilar to that which Rachel had given him just half an hour previously. “You’re Omega-Class,” she informed him. “But control and mastery of your full abilities always occurs fairly late.”  
“Told you,” Beth said smugly from behind him, only to be shushed by Moira.  
“Robert,” she continued.  
“Bobby,” Bobby mumbled in correction.  
“Of course, Bobby. My apologies. Bobby, are you aware of what it means to be Omega-Class?”  
“I think it’s been explained to me before… but I can’t exactly remember,” Bobby stammered.  
“Well, then, let’s give you a refresher.” Moira leaned back in her chair. “There are six mutant power classes. The simplest is Gamma-Class, into which our friends Mr Worthington and Dr McCoy fall. The mutant has some description of upgrade to their human body. Your friend Mr Wagner’s tail and ability to grip to surfaces are an example, as is your friend Ms Carlyle’s extreme strength.”  
“She can pick up the bed when she feels the need,” Beth whispered, receiving an exasperated sigh from Moira.  
“ _ Anyway _ . On the subject of your friend Ms Carlyle, the next step is Beta-Class. A Beta-Class ability is one which is not clearly caused by the mutant’s body, but over which the mutant themself has no control. Ms Carlyle’s ability to incapacitate and absorb power with only a touch is a wonderful example, but Mr Summer’s optic blasts are another, as is Mr Howlett’s healing factor. Or Ms Kinney’s.”  
This time, Beth made no attempt to interrupt. Moira pursed her lips. “Don’t worry, either of you. We’ll save her. But we have more to discuss. An Alpha-Class mutation is a Beta mutation over which the mutant has control. Most of the island falls into this class. And, finally, Omega-Class. An Omega-Class ability is simply an Alpha-Class ability on which there is no upper ceiling. If so inclined, Mrs Frost could make contact with any mind in the universe. Mrs Munroe could cause weather events which have never been seen on this planet. You, Mr Drake, could reduce the temperature of any object to absolute zero in nanoseconds. And that isn’t even touching upon your secondary and tertiary mutations.”  
Bobby’s eyes had glazed over. “Should I… do that?”  
“It is not advised. Listen, Bobby. I am going to ask Mrs Munroe to give you some tutelage in controlling your mutation. It is not entirely dissimilar to hers, and I believe that she could have some genuine help for you. For now though, you are both dismissed.”  
Beth paused as they turned to leave. “Hang on,” she said. “You said there were six power classes. That was only four.”  
Moira smiled, but it was not a smile which filled Beth with joy. “I may teach you about those some other time. For now, those four fit all but two of the mutants that I have ever encountered.”  
Beth nodded, and followed Bobby back to the surface.

“Pietro?”  
Pietro groggily cracked open his eyes to the dark of the cell, and the rough shape of a face looming over him. “Eugh,” he grunted. “Laura?”  
“It’s me.” She leaned back, letting him get up. He had a splitting headache, the pain worse than anything he had felt in his life.  
“Why does my head hurt so much?” He asked, sitting up. He reached up, and felt his hair, matted with dried blood. “Ah.”  
“That’s mostly my blood. According to my dad it can heal other people’s injuries if applied right. Generally that means through a syringe, but I didn’t have any other choice, so I just poured it directly onto the wound. And some into your mouth because I was panicking.”  
Pietro tasted the iron for the first time. “What happened?” He croaked.  
“Kimura hit you real bad. I think you would have died if it weren’t for me.”  
“Thank you, then.”  
“Don’t mention it.”  
He slumped against the cell wall. Laura sat back on her haunches. He could make out details now; blood stained her face, and dark rings were under her eyes. “When do you think the X-Men are getting here?” He wondered.  
Laura shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t remember how long it’s been. I just want… I just want to see my friends.”  
“Don’t I count?”  
Laura laughed, almost hysterically. Upon catching Pietro’s pained expression, however, she stopped. “I’m… sorry. It’s just been such a long time since anything has been funny. You are my friend, Pietro, especially after all that you and I have experienced together.”  
“It’s ok. I get it.” He shivered. “It’s so much colder.”  
“Must be getting to winter then,” Laura mused. “They should give you a blanket.”  
“Do you think they will?”  
“No. You have me, though.”  
“My knight in shining armour.”  
Laura smiled in the darkness. “Come here, little damsel.”  
“Oh, if you’re going to start bringing up the fact that you’re taller than me-”  
Laura flowed across the space between them, tackling Pietro to the floor and causing him to burst out with laughter. She knew he could have dodged her if he had wanted to, and was surprised to find herself glad that he hadn’t. She wrapped her strong arms around him and rolled him onto his side, pressing him to her torso. “Hush now, little damsel,” she whispered. “We’re both sleepy.”  
He nuzzled her hair, and she smiled as he sighed in happiness. “Laura…” he breathed. “I think I…” He trailed off. “I mean to say that-” “I love you too.” She was as surprised as he was to hear herself say it, but the relief it brought her was exquisite.  
Pietro released a shaky breath. “I love you,” he murmured. Laura squeezed him tighter.  
“God, I wish I could fuck you,” she told him, tenderly placing a kiss on his tear streaked cheek.  
“Why can’t you?” He teased, stroking her dirty hair.  
“I’m tired and filthy and not in the mood and if you end up getting me pregnant then we’re just giving them another weapon. Can you imagine? A mutant with both our abilities?”  
“Fair enough.” He sighed, heart bursting with melancholy and joy. “I suppose this is enough.” He paused. “My dad won’t approve.”  
“Nor will mine,” Laura sighed. “But we’re beyond their opinions now. When we get out of here, you’re going to meet Kitty and Beth and Alex and Rachel and Bobby and Marian and Kurt and they’re going to like you and it’s going to be great.”  
He kissed her cheek, making her giggle a little. “I wish you could meet my sisters,” he said glumly. “But my father would never let them out of his sight.”  
“We’ll find a way around,” Laura said, tenderly squeezing him. “I always do. Time to sleep, babe.”  
“Goodnight, my dear.”  
“Hmm.”

The gym echoed loudly with the sound of Marian breaking things. A dumbell, bent out of shape, smashed into the wall as Beth gingerly stepped into the side room set aside for Marian’s personal use. “Hey, babe?” She asked sheepishly. “You wanna talk about it?”  
“Not pressingly,” Marian grunted, smacking a training dummy over the head with an enormous lump of lead. A face had been haphazardly scrawled onto the dummy’s now deformed and broken head, and in large, angry letters proclaimed the word ‘Kimura’ across its chest. “Fine. Maybe a bit.” Beth took a seat on a bench as Marian kicked at the dummy, sending it smashing into the wall. “Never, not in my whole damn life, have I felt this much hate for anything. Not even my parents. Not even my town’s pastor.”  
“That’s… quite a lot then.”  
“It really is.” Marian sighed, wandering over to a punching bag and halfheartedly smacking it off its supports. “I want to kill her.”  
“So do I,” Beth said quietly. “Is it just Laura, or because of what Rachel was talking about earlier? Because you knew you could have stopped it?”  
Marian sighed. “Yeah. I could have.”  
“Sweetheart, you don’t-”  
“I do, Beth!” She roared. “When I was a kid, when Ororo came to my town to take me away, I was shot. Like five times. I’m bulletproof. Fucking _ bulletproof _ , Beth. But I got scared, and I froze, because when I saw them with the guns I was that terrified little fourteen year old again, whose own parents were trying to burn her alive at the stake, like a _ fucking _ witch. Because I was too weak to save my friend.” She slumped, allowing tears to run down her face. “I let them take her.”  
“It isn’t just on you, Marian.”  
“I know that!” She screamed, catching Beth off guard. “Here. If you won’t see it yourself, I’ll show you.” She crossed the room in a single stride, taking Beth’s face in her hands.  
Instantly, Beth’s face was flooded with pain. She cried out, eyes rolling upwards in her skull as consciousness began to evade her. Her mind flickered. Her resolve wavered. She gritted her teeth, pushing herself to stay awake, through the pain, and met her girlfriend’s gaze. Their eyes flared magenta, and their minds became one.  
Beth was immediately swamped in a flood of emotion. Rage swirled around her, Marian’s rage, white hot and persistent. In it she saw Kimura’s face, always on the receiving end of fantasies of revenge. Beth steeled herself, and looked deeper. The rage was no longer a flood, but a mask, and the mask covered Marian’s face. _ Marian, _ she said. _ Show me.  
_ _ I’m scared._  
That’s natural. Let me see underneath.  
She reached up, and gently plucked the mask of fury from Marian’s face, and read what was beneath. Marian’s face became instead a great expanse, and in that expanse Beth saw reflected many things which she was feeling. Regret. Pain. Woe. Self hatred.  
Marian’s hands snapped away from Beth’s face, and she fell backwards, panting. Beth fell against the wall, cheeks still burning. She could see stars.  
“Beth?” Marian stumbled to her knees. She shuffled over to Beth and placed her hands on Beth’s covered knees. “Oh my god. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t want… oh god, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”  
“It’s ok. I’m not mad.” Beth sighed, rubbing her cheeks. “And I’m still conscious, so we’re making progress.” She looked down at her girlfriend. “My dear, you need to talk about your emotions more.”  
“I’ll try.” Marian wrapped her arms around Beth’s legs. “I’m so sorry, Beth. Please, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’d never hurt you. You’re all I have.”  
“I know, sweetheart. It’s ok. I love you. And I always will.” Beth wished then, perhaps more than she had ever wished for anything, that she could kiss Marian. To just pet her hair would have been enough, or to hold her hand without the need for a glove. A tear rolled from the corner of her eye. What she would give...

Moira looked up sharply as the door to her study was thrown roughly open. “I found him,” Emma breathed, eyes wild. “He has some kind of psychic shield, but he removed it for long enough for me to locate him.”  
Moira stood up, smile broadening. “Perfect,” she said. “Emma, my friend, we are _ finally _in business. Call the council at once.”

“Magneto is sequestered on a satellite,” Emma declared them. “Just as Moira told us. When I detected it, he was directly above a largely empty stretch of the Pacific Ocean. I have logged the orbital path to Cerebro’s data cache, but I assume that he is able to make alterations to the orbital path.”  
“It seems likely,” Sage agreed. “We will need to act fast. Moira, do we have the means to reach his satellite?”  
“My magics are still limited,” Moira said grudgingly. “But I believe that I can send a team to Asteroid M without too much difficulty.”  
“How soon should we be ready to leave?” Logan asked.  
“As soon as possible. Though I am not without magic, it will be difficult for me to manage a large group. I would suggest a group of no more than eight, if that number can be sourced at such short notice.”  
“It can,” Scott said, standing up. “Logan, Xorn, Sage, you’re with me. Emma, stay here in Cerebro. Provide a communications link between us and the island. I’ll bring Piotr too, and Jean. Anyone else?”  
“Ororo,” Logan said tersely. “The more Omegas, the better.”  
“Agreed. And for an eighth…” Scott’s face curled into a smile. “I believe we shall debut our newest member. What Magneto doesn’t know can hurt him a great deal.”

** Scott Summers, “Cyclops” **  
** Country of origin: United States of America (Alaska).**  
** Mutation: Concussive force blasts projected from the eyes.**  
** Power class: Beta.**

** Logan Howlett, “Wolverine” **  
** Country of origin: Canada.**  
** Mutation (primary): Hyper accelerated healing factor.**  
** Mutation (secondary): Bone claws.**  
** Mutation (tertiary): Superhuman physiology and senses.**  
** Power class (primary): Beta.**  
** Power class (secondary): Gamma.**  
** Power class (tertiary): Gamma.**  
** Enhancement: Adamantium skeleton.**

** Shen Xorn **  
** Country of origin: China.**  
** Mutation: Gravitational field manipulation and creation.**  
** Power class: Omega.**

  
  
** Tessa Sage**  
** Country of origin: Serbia.**  
** Mutation: Computational brain and resultant superhuman intellect.**  
** Power class: Gamma.**

** Jean Grey **  
** Country of origin: United States of America (Nebraska).**  
** Mutation: Psionics (telepathy, telekinesis).**  
** Power class: Omega, Omega.**

** Monet St. Croix **  
** Country of origin: France.**  
** Mutation (primary): Superhuman physicality, senses, and intellect.**  
** Mutation (secondary): Psionics (telepathy, tactile telekinesis).**  
** Mutation (tertiary): Healing factor.**  
** Mutation (quaternary): Highly manipulable physical form.**  
** Power class (primary): Gamma.**  
** Power class (secondary): Alpha, Tau.**  
** Power class (tertiary): Beta.**  
** Power class (quaternary): Alpha.**

“Report, team!” Scott barked.  
“Colossus, reporting!”  
“Wolverine, reporting!”  
“Grey, reporting!”  
“St. Croix, reporting!”  
“Xorn, reporting.”  
“Sage, reporting.”  
“Storm, reporting!”  
Scott’s lip curled upward. They stood in the main hangar, assembled in an ordered line. Scott faced them, visor attached to his face. “You’re all aware of the stakes of this mission,” he grunted. “The future of mutantkind, the freedom of one of our own, our having to remain in the public eye.” He marched up and down the line. “The plan is simple. Once aboard the satellite, we make our way to Magneto by any means necessary; but we leave Magneto himself, as well as his inner circle, alive. They have information which we desperately need. Is everyone prepared?”  
“Aye, sir!” His cohort chorused.  
Scott turned to Monet St. Croix, the X-Men’s newest addition. “St. Croix,” he addressed her. “This is to be your first field mission. Are you prepared?”  
“Oui,” she replied, chin angled upward. “I am quite prepared, Cyclops.”  
“Perfect.” Scott turned to where Moira was standing. “Mz X, we’re ready when you are.”  
Moira nodded, and took a step forward. “Beast and Frost are monitoring you all,” she informed them. “Be wary, X-Men.” She arched her face upward, took a deep breath, and reached out towards them. She carved runes into the air, brow furrowed in concentration. She muttered strange words under her breath, words which had no meaning in any language to be found on Earth. Around the assembled X-Men, the air began to pulse with sudden energy.  
“Here we go,” Logan breathed.  
Monet sucked in air through her teeth, eyes wide with anticipation.  
Jean glanced upwards, as if searching for answers.  
Ororo’s jaw was set in grim determination.  
Scott and Piotr exchanged terse nods.  
Xorn and Sage remained unreadable.  
Moira made the final runes, and her hands flared with light as the X-Men vanished into thin air.  
For a moment, all there was was falling, and then…  
Boots hit the metal deck of a grand chamber. At one end of the cavernous space, on a raised dais of steel, stood a great throne. The eyes of their occupants turned on the group of X-Men and stood up, taking stock of the visitors.  
On the throne, a man rose to his feet. A great helm was upon his head, and his body obscured by a purple cloak. Through the helm, the X-Men perceived a pair of bright blue eyes, which were trained on them in rage.  
“X-Men…” Magneto drawled. “You have found me.” He ascended above the throne, cloak billowing around him. “I sense equals among you. What a shameful waste of talent.” He raised a hand, and around him rose many lengths of polished steel, heavy and razor sharp. “The time for debate, it would seem, is at an end. Goodbye, X-Men.”  
Scott squeezed the pressure pad on the thumb pad of his glove. A burst of red light, and two of the beams were annihilated. Jean’s hand flew up. The remainder stopped in mid air.  
Scott narrowed his eyes. “Go get them, X-Men,” he growled.  
Logan lunged. Monet rocketed forward. Jean released a psychic scream which caused Magneto’s council to drop to the ground, hands covering their ears and faces contorted. Scott ran forward, and before he knew it he was in the thick of combat. Energy forms flared around him, toward him, from him. Flames erupted, metal was torn, the sounds of screaming and rage filled the chamber.  
Logan relished the fight. Three months of frustration and fury welled to the surface, and it was all released in a red rage. He felt his claws tear at flesh and rend bone, and roared in the faces of the mutants that tried to pull him down. He smelled blood, sweat, anger, and… his eyes narrowed. Creed.  
Xorn ascended above his companions, hands folded before him. “Magneto,” he greeted his opponent. “A pleasure.”  
“Mr Xorn, I believe,” Magneto replied cordially. “I must say that of all the potential here wasted, yours is perhaps the most regrettable.”  
“I can and would say the same for you,” said Xorn, inclining his head. He opened his hands, revealing within them a sphere of total blackness. “Perhaps you know what this is?”  
“Impressive,” Magneto mused as the carnage raged below them. “A way to end all of us. And where would that leave you?”  
“We have other X-Men, and children entering training.”  
“Just as I have underlings who will continue my work after my own death.” Magneto raised a hand, and the magnetic fields around Xorn’s helmet fluctuated, warping the metal.  
“I would not advise that. I am not able to manipulate all singularities as easily as this one,” Xorn informed him. The fields ceased. “Thank you.” He held aloft the black hole in his hand, the blue light in his helm flaring, and released a concentrated jet of Hawking radiation at his adversary.

Kitty stood by Hank, anxiously wringing her hands as he checked and rechecked his instruments, brow furrowed in extreme concentration. “How is the fighting going?” She asked.  
“It’s difficult to tell from my position,” he told her, voice coming out slowly as he concentrated on his work. “Things seem to be progressing as planned, however. Jean is injured, but it is not beyond Dr Reyes’ skill to heal, and Logan is losing blood quickly. However, it is estimated that in his current state of heightened adrenaline, his healing factor will soon overtake the rate of blood loss.” A light on the control panel began to blink. “Interesting. Gravitational and electromagnetic fields around our team seem to be in extreme flux. Xorn and Magneto are holding little back.”

Destiny gripped her charges by their upper arms as she dragged them away from the carnage. The girls were complaining, of course, but she was in no mood to allow them to leave. “Your father’s orders were clear,” she told them, voice clipped and severe. “You are to be evacuated.”  
“But we want to help!” The girl she held with her right hand growled, flicking her green hair back in defiance. “We can help!”  
“You are children!” Destiny snapped. “And while your father will do a great many things in the name of our goals, he will not send children into battle.”  
“We’re nineteen,” shot back the other girl, darker skinned and with red pupils. “We’re not kids anymore. And besides, if that were the case, he wouldn’t have sold Pietro.”  
“Pietro abandoned us,” Destiny hissed. They were approaching the escape pods, which were already filling with other denizens of Asteroid M. “Move! I have his children to be evacuated!”  
“We can help!” The green haired girl insisted. “We’re powerful! I’m more powerful than he is!”  
“But you lack experience,” Destiny retorted, thrusting them both into a pod. “Once you arrive on Earth’s surface, you are to remain hidden. The pod’s tracking device will allow us to locate you.”  
“And if you aren’t still here to find us?”  
Destiny paused, thinking for a moment. She leaned in close, and whispered. “You didn’t hear this from me. Find the X-Men. They won’t turn their backs on you, no matter whose daughters you are. I’m sorry, both of you.  
She stepped back, and the pods doors slammed shut between them. She waved to the girls one final time before they dropped away, an orange halo forming around the pod as it plummeted towards the planet below.

** Lorna Dane **  
** Country of origin: Norway.**  
** Mutation (primary): Electromagnetic field manipulation and creation.**  
** Mutation (secondary): Gravitational field manipulation and creation.**  
** Power class (primary): Omega.**  
** Power class (secondary): Omega.**

** Wanda Maximoff **  
** Country of origin: Romania.**  
** Mutation (primary): Reality bending (thaumic).**  
** Mutation (secondary): Magical affinity (chaotic).**  
** Mutation (tertiary): Psionics (telekinesis).**  
** Power class (primary): Omega.**  
** Power class (secondary): Tau.**  
** Power class (tertiary): Alpha.**

“Detecting a number of objects leaving the Asteroid M satellite!” Hank reported. “Size and composition would indicate escape pods.”  
“Leave them,” Moira ordered from her command seat. “They likely present no threat. Do we have any more injuries on our side?”  
“None that I can detect, although the integrity of Xorn’s helmet has been put at risk. There is a two point six percent chance of a fracture before the battle is up.”  
“I don’t like those odds. Emma, tell him to keep away from the majority of the fighting.”  
_ Message relayed.  
_ “Thank you.”

Above the world, mutant war raged. The daughters of Magneto plummeted away from the battle, and somewhere below them Kitty Pryde bit her nails in nervous anticipation as her eyes darted across the dashboard of Hank McCoy’s instruments. Nick Fury listened with interest as an agent informed him of electromagnetic storms in the upper atmosphere.  
Under the world, the son of Magneto and the daughter of the Wolverine huddled together for warmth, shuddering against the encroaching night and whispering reassurance to each other when the draft blew.  
In the vast heavens, the being which Jean Grey had befriended turned blazing eyes on the Earth, interest piqued.


	7. Chapter 6, What Fools These Mortals Be

_ Moira IX _

Night descended upon the mutant capitol Tyr. In the jungle beyond the city’s bounds, the night time calls of the forest beasts whooped and screeched into the night. Below the city’s dome, however, the populace slept soundly, the sounds and fears of the night kept at bay by the glass hemisphere.  
At the centre of the city, in the midst of the elegant architecture, lush greenery, and mutant peace, sat the Throne Hall of Apocalypse, the ruler of the city. In the centre of that hall, upon a great throne of marble, sat the great mutant immortal. He leaned forward, his grey-blue face, screwed up in thought as he listened to his horsemen.  
“Sentinels mass on our western border,” War told him. “I have seen them myself.”  
“How many?” Apocalypse asked. “And of what variety?”  
“Hard to say,” shrugged War. “At least two hundred of the regular ones. Looked to be some smaller variety too, maybe omegas? Was hard to tell. About a thousand of those. Some black-brain mutants, maybe fifty of them? And nanites. No idea how many there were, or how dangerous they’ve gotten.”  
“Interesting,” Apocalypse mused. “Famine, how are the humans faring?”  
“Hard to tell,” Robert Drake replied. “Like Logan said, with the sentinels on our border, it’s getting difficult to see much further west, and they’re starting to get wise to my slipping through the waterways. However, they’re alive and kicking. It’s hard to say exactly how many are left, and they seem to be passing off more and more power to the sentinel AI, which is becoming increasingly complex, by the way.”  
“Problematic,” Apocalypse rumbled. “Death, do you have the capacity to take out the sentinels on our border?”  
“Not alone,” said Xorn wearily. “The AI appears to have discovered how to adapt to even the most strenuous exertions of my power.”  
“Dammit,” Apocalypse cursed. “These sentinels are evolving faster than we are.”  
“If I may, sir,” said an oily voice from behind the three horsemen. They turned to see a fourth man, face pale as a sheet, dressed all in black. On his brow was the shape of a diamond, and red as blood. “There is a potential fix to this.”  
“No,” Robert and Logan snapped in unison.  
“Wait,” Apocalypse ordered. “I will hear your idea, Pestilence.”  
“Thank you, my lord,” Pestilence said, superficial smile wide across his face. “As I have postulated in the past, a planned breeding program, using hand selected mutants, could with minimal genetic tampering result in a next generation of supremely powerful mutants, allowing for up to sixteen X-Genes per mutant by the fourth generation.”  
“Lord Apocalypse, you cannot allow this to stand!” Robert exclaimed. “What Pestilence suggests goes against everything we as homo superior hold dear! Our freedom, our children, our individuality!”  
“And what happens, Lord, when humans attain genetic engineering on a scale enough to induce mutation in themselves, hmm?” Pestilence continued. “One mutant amongst homo sapiens is a god. A mutant amongst homo novissima, a name which I have heard whispered amongst human geneticists, is  _ nothing _ . Our choice, Famine, is to breed, or it is to expire.”  
“And in breeding, becoming no better than them,” Logan snarled.  
“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary actions, my friend,” Pestilence smirked.  
“Do you have a program ready?” Apocalypse asked.  
“I do, Lord.”  
“Good. I want you to begin right away.”  
“What?” Robert roared. In a heartbeat, his form had shifted, flesh and bone replaced with solid ice. “No! I will not support this insanity!”   
“The choice is not yours to make,” Apocalypse growled. “Power down, Famine.”  
A pair of wings, comprised of fine lengths and shards of ice, emerged from Robert’s back. The temperature in the room, which had been pleasantly warm not a moment before, was suddenly cold enough for breath to become visible.  
Logan stepped forward. “Bobby,” he said softly. “Now is not the time.”  
The wings drooped, and Robert looked down. In another moment, the wings dropped to the ground, shattering and beginning to melt there. Ice reverted to flesh. He looked up at Apocalypse, tears in the corner of his eyes. “I will have no part in this,” he said defiantly, and stormed out of the Hall, shooting Pestilence a look that could have killed. Logan hurried to catch up with him as he descended the steps from the hall, head in his hands.  
“Bobby!” He called. “Bob, come on…”  
“It’s Robert, Logan,” he retorted. “I’m not a child anymore.”  
“Robert. Sorry. Please, stop, I just want to talk.”  
Robert sighed, and stopped walking. He sat on the steps, gazing out over Tyr. “I’m sorry,” Logan murmured, settling himself beside him. “I understand that it’s harder for you.”  
“It’s been… two months,” Robert murmured. “I won’t… breed. Phoenix, does he have to say it like that? No, I won’t breed with anyone else.”  
Logan nodded. “We all miss her, kid,” he sighed. “Even when we don’t have as much reason to as you.”  
“What do I do now, Logan? I can’t… I won’t disrespect her memory. Not now. Not with North to look after.”  
“Doesn’t seem to me like there’ll be much option,” Logan said gently. “And besides, with how you treated him back there, and that you’re Omega-Class… your name’s gonna  
be at the top of the list.”  
“I would rather die.”  
“Don’t say that. Lorna wouldn’t want you to say that.”  
Robert snorted. “Lorna’s gone, Howlett. It doesn’t matter what she’d want anymore.” He wiped the tears from his face. “I’m leaving. One way or another. If I have to get to space, or another dimension, or anywhere else to escape, I’m leaving.”  
Logan was silent for a long time. “Robert?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I think I’d like to come with you.”  
Robert stuck out his hand. “Welcome aboard, old man.”

Robert pushed his front door open wearily. Logan had left him several blocks prior, going to check in with his own daughter. Stepping into the hallway, he wiped his shoes on the mat, sighing as he did. The house seemed emptier now, as did meetings of the Horsemen. He realised now just how much he had taken Lorna for granted, and how much brighter his life had been with her around. She had always been a little abrasive to others, but with him she had been tender, loving, and full of fire. There was less laughter now. Fewer reasons to smile. North had asked to be enrolled in after school classes, because now that Mommy was gone Daddy was never as happy. Meetings of the Horsemen had devolved from Pestilence being shouted down at the first opportunity to his ideas being the ruling vote in Tyr. Xorn wasn’t bad in Lorna’s role, he simply didn’t have the presence that she had brought.  
The light in the kitchen was on. “North?” Robert called. “You there, buddy?”  
His son poked his head around the door, his light green curls highlighted in the yellow light from the bulb. The fourteen year old had red eyes and a handkerchief in one hand. “Hello, Daddy,” he said hollowly.  
Robert managed a weak smile. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”  
“I’m not tired,” North sniffled.  
“Me neither.” Robert sat down in the chair positioned by the doorway. “Do you want to hear a story?”  
“Is it a happy story?”   
“No.”  
“Then yes.”  
Robert almost laughed, but caught himself. “Ok, North,” he sighed. “Here goes.”

Once upon a time, there was a great Tower, and that Tower rose above all the lands around it, and from its great peak the lord of the Tower commanded those lands with an iron fist and a watchful eye.  
The lord of the Tower was a powerful Magician, who it is said had made a deal with the Devil himself, and for her efforts been awarded the Tower and many great magical powers.

“What was the Magician’s name?” North interrupted.  
“I don’t know,” Robert shrugged. “I don’t think she has one.”  
“Everyone has a name.”  
“Fine. Her name was Rasputin.”  
North cokced his head. “That sounds familiar…”  
“I knew someone called Rasputin once. Anyway, listen to the story…”

The Magician, whose name was Rasputin, lived in this Tower with everything that she could ever want, and she had many courtesans and entertainers to keep herself happy. For many years, the Magician lived in that Tower, as contented as could be, when one day it occurred to her that despite all the luxuries around her, it had been such a long time since she had left her Tower that she had forgotten all about the outside world. She voiced this concern to her two favourite courtesans, whose names were Cylobel and Emmanuel. They did not know what to do or say, for they did not remember a time when they had lived outside the Tower themselves. So the Magician went to the great mirror that stood in the highest room of the Tower, and she asked to see the Devil. The Devil came to her in the image of a Cardinal, and she said to him, “Devil, why have you trapped me here?”  
And the Devil said to her, “Why, Magician, whose name is Rasputin Chimera, Fifth in her Family of that Name, at Whose Command wait all the Powers and Dominions of Hell, I have trapped you in this state to free you and to educate you!”

“She does have a name!” North exclaimed.  
“Yes, she does,” Robert said, mouth twisting again into the facsimile of a smile. “It’s a very special name, and if I were you I wouldn’t repeat it.”

“But how do you plan to free me if you have caged me here?” The Magician asked.  
“I have not caged you,” the Cardinal who was the Devil told her. “You may leave at any time you wish. The true objective is, and has always been, to teach you.”  
“What do you wish to teach me about?” The Magician asked him.  
“I wished to teach you an important lesson about God and the World,” said the Devil-Cardinal. “For I have given you everything that you might possibly need in this Tower, and you have made your own amusement and made no attempt to leave. Do you understand me, Rasputin Chimera?”  
“No,” said the Magician. “For, although this world is limited, there are men who build Rockets to take us to the Stars, and women who weave Magics to take us beyond this set of Dimensions.”  
“But you underestimate God,” the Cardinal behind whose eyes burned the Flames of Hell said. “For God has provided a means to slake your appetites for exploration and hunger beyond the confines of your Planet, just as I have provided people to come and go from this Tower. Do you understand me now?”  
“I believe that I do understand you,” said Rasputin Chimera. “But what must be done about it?”  
The Devil smiled his wide Devil smile. “The next lesson to learn is not yours,” he told her. “But the Tower is still yours, and in it I shall sequester you beyond Time and Space, that you may await the occasion that all the lessons are learned.”  
The Magician, beginning to understand, thanked the Devil, and left the highest room in the Tower to return to the delights below, where waited her courtesans and entertainers. And the Devil took the Tower, and bent Space and Time around it, so as to conceal it from the sight of humans, mutants, machines, and even God.

_ Moira X  
_ Magneto knelt, hands bound behind his back. His head was held back by a length of rope, and he was forced to stare into a bright light. His nostrils flared as the woman standing over him spoke.  
“I can do this all day,” she told him, each word slamming through his mind like a knife. “I may eat and drink whenever I wish. I can do whatever I want with you.” Emma Frost stooped to his level, eyes burning with rage. “Where is Laura Kinney?”  
“Why does it matter?” Magneto sneered. “One lost child in the name of the cause? There will be others, before your mission is over.”  
Emma slapped him, and he felt the knife in his mind twist. He groaned at the psychic pain. “I may not be able to access your memories directly, but I can make things very uncomfortable for you,” Emma said, voice clipped with malice. “And if you don’t comply with me, I’ll let Wolverine interrogate you. We’ll see just how much you enjoy  _ that _ .”   
“You people are no better than I,” Magneto laughed. “You align yourselves with humanity’s Avengers, but you would go as far for your cause as I.”  
Emma’s mouth curled into a wide smile. “We’re no more aligned to the Avengers than you are,” she said. “Last night, I used Cerebro to remove any memory of us that humanity ever had.”  
“Why?”  
“We used the Avengers to lure you out. Now that we have you, there is no more need for them.”  
“Cunning as ever, Mz Frost.”  
“Perhaps. But we are getting off topic. What is the purpose of your partnership with Kimura?”  
“We used her as a way to attack you. She used our information to take the girl. The partnership was simple, and mutually beneficial.”  
Emma twisted the psychic knife. “And she told you where Laura was being transported?”  
“She did.”  
“Where?”  
“That is not your concern.”  
Emma bent down, eyes narrowed. “I’m forced to disagree with you there, my friend,” she said. “On this island are a father and a mother without their daughter, a little boy without his big sister, and any number of children without their friend. And if these people go without that for much longer, it is going to become my problem. And if it becomes my problem, then it also becomes your problem.” She gripped Magneto by his chin, and forced him to stare into her eyes. “Where is Logan Howlett’s daughter?”  
Magneto stared back defiantly. “Do you think that I don’t want to tell you?” He asked. “Kimura has something of mine, just as she has something of yours. But a deal is a deal.”  
Emma let go of his face, glaring. She turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, frustrated and despairing.  
Moira waited for her outside. “I take it you made little progress?”  
“He definitely knows  _ where _ she is. Nothing more, at least not yet.” Emma sighed, deflating a little. “Should we allow Logan to speak with him?”  
“Not yet,” Moira said. “We need him alive, after all. I asked Sarah if she would see him, but she refused.”  
“Marian.” Emma wasn’t sure where the thought had come from. “Psionic defenses are useless against her.”  
“So you’re suggesting that we…?”  
“Yes. She’s Laura’s friend, she’ll say yes.”  
“And the potential consequences of having Magneto in her head?”  
“It’s a risk we’ll have to take.”  
Moira nodded. “I see. Find her.” She took a deep breath. “We may finally have some answers.”

_ No-Space  
_ Rasputin Chimera sits in earnest contemplation at the summit of her tower, hands folded on the hilt of her sword. Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated, trying desperately to hold on to every second. The act is to be immensely difficult.  
She looks up sharply at the sound of footsteps. A man will enter the room. His skin is red, his ears pointed, and a snaking tail protruded from beneath his robe. “Cardinal!” She greets him, standing from her throne. “It has been a long time. Or perhaps no time at all.”  
“I must confess that I too have lost track of how long we have been here,” Cardinal will say. “I looked at the face of the clock in the Great Hall earlier, at least I think it was earlier, and it had many more hands than I remembered, and all moving at different speeds.” He shakes his head. “It has become impossible to keep track of anything.”  
Rasputin will nod her head. “It is indeed a strange circumstance,” she mused. “Why have you come to see me, Cardinal?”  
“It is because I find myself wondering,” Cardinal replies. “That as we are here, beyond time or space, and all moments are simultaneous, that we may not know if we are ever to leave, or to have left, this existence.”  
Rasputin considered this. “It is an interesting question,” she will say. “But, at once, there was a time when we were not like this, thus implying that the future is a state that still exists, even if the time taken to reach it is infinite.”  
“That is true,” Cardinal shall concede. “Then there is nothing to do but wait?”  
“It appears not,” Rasputin sighed. “Do you know any location in which Cylobel may be found?”  
“Nearly all of them,” Cardinal replies.  
“Oh. Of course. I suppose that is true.” Rasputin Chimera placed her head in her hands. “This scenario is so bizarre, Cardinal.”  
Cardinal nods. “And yet, there is nothing that we can do.”  
“No. No there is not.”

_ Moira X  
_ Pietro stared with dull eyes through the glass, on the other side of which Laura writhed on the floor and Kimura hit her, over and over with the same police baton she had used to punish Pietro only days prior. Laura howled and screeched in primal fury, back arching and claws scything to little effect. Kimura was clearly delighted, laughing as each blow connected and kicking Laura as she recoiled from every hit. This was the fifth time Pietro had seen her do this. She would spray a little of the trigger scent on herself, and then delightedly do as much harm to Laura as she could as she desperately tried to cut through her impenetrable skin. The first couple of times, Pietro hadn’t even watched. The third, he had banged his fist on the glass, yelling and pleading with Kimura to stop. The fourth, he had simply cried. Now, watching her beat the girl who had woken him up in the morning with a kiss within an inch of her life, all he felt was a hollowness in his soul. He was powerless. His leg was locked in a brace, which would deliver an extremely painful electric shock if he attempted to use his powers. The glass was five inches thick. The guards were under orders to cripple him if he tried anything. All he could do was watch Kimura. He could no longer tell if the display was to beat Laura into submission or to break his spirit, but it had succeeded at the latter.  
He dimly registered that Laura had stopped moving. Kimura poked at the unmoving form with the toe of her boot, and laughed. She grabbed Laura by her hair and dragged her over to the observation window, where she hoisted her up to the glass and waved her bruised and bloodied face in front of Pietro, a grin on her own face. Pietro only blinked. Kimura laughed out loud, and dropped Laura.  
A section of the viewing window slid open, and Kimura hurled Laura’s unmoving body through. “Take them back to their cell,” she ordered the guards. Pietro felt the barrel of a gun prod at his back, and he glumly stumbled forward, movement impeded somewhat by the brace. “X-24!” Kimura called. He looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ve got a very special surprise for you tomorrow. I think you’ll love it.”  
Pietro made no response, and trudged back to his cell.  
Laura came to a few minutes after the guards had bolted the door behind them. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, took a shaky breath, and vomited up a stomachful of blood. “I’m fine,” she assured him as he started forward. “Better out than in.” She wiped blood away from her mouth. “I’m sorry she made you watch that. Again.”  
“It gets easier every time,” Pietro said softly. He gulped. “Oh god, here I go…” Tears started to run down his cheeks. He bent over, sobbing into his knees, taking deep, ragged breaths between sobs.  
“Hey!” Laura exclaimed. “Hey, it’s ok!” She crawled to him, and gently pulled him into a hug. “Shh, now. What’s wrong?”  
He rested his head on her shoulder, letting his tears soak into the fabric of her tattered shirt. “She’s finally done it,” he said, voice small and weak. “She’s broken me.”  
Laura petted his hair, eyes full of pity. “I know, babe,” she murmured. “It’s bad. I hate her too.”  
“She said she has some kind of… of surprise for me tomorrow.” He clung tight to Laura, not daring to loosen his grip lest she fade. “I’m so scared, Laura.”  
“Listen to me, Pietro,” she whispered. “Whatever it is, she won’t kill you. And I’ll still be here for you once it’s over.” She kissed his brow. “I’m scared too. When we’re away from here, on Muir Island, I will stay with you, night and day, as long as you need me to. I’ll help you calm.”  
Pietro’s tears subsided a little. “Tell me more about Muir Island,” he asked, leaning up and kissing Laura’s jaw.  
“Well, it’s very windy. And very rainy. But sometimes Ororo, my stepmom, will send all the clouds and the rain away, and then there is the most beautiful sunshine, and the sea is as calm as a mirror.” Laura sighed contentedly. “And when that happens, we go out onto the moors and look for wildlife. Sometimes me and Marian run with the deer. Sometimes we find fish in the tarns. Sometimes Beth and Rachel get the rabbits and birds to come to us, and we pet their fur and their feathers.” She smiled. “I can’t wait to show it all to you. For you to join us as we run with the deer.”  
“I would like that,” he said, still holding her. “I love you.”  
“I love you more.”  
“You wish.”  
Laura laughed, and kissed him some more.

Emma knocked on the door to the rec room in the kids’ dorm building. She couldn’t help but turn her nose up, just a little. Elizabeth had a point, this place could be in better shape. The door was opened by Kurt Wagner, who practically gasped in surprise at her appearance.  
“Kurt,” she greeted him with a smile. “Is Marian in there?”  
“Ja,” he replied. “Why? Is she in trouble, because the damage at the gym was completely-”  
“No, she’s not in trouble,” Emma assured him. “Although I will need to hear more about this occurrence at the gym. I actually have a job for her at this present time. May I come in?”  
“Of course.” Kurt stepped aside, and Emma strode into the room. The kids were lounging around, not doing any of the schoolwork that they had been set.  
“Children,” said Emma, stepping into the room. Immediately, the group was more alert and straight backed. Emma sighed. “I see that none of you are currently pursuing your studies?”  
“No, Mz Frost,” came back the low murmur from the room.  
Emma pursed her lips. “At the very least, the honesty is appreciated,” she said curtly. “Ms Carlyle, could I please have a moment of your time?”  
“I, uh, um,” Marian stammered. “Sure. Yes, Mz Frost.”  
“With me,” Emma said, leading the girl from the room. Marian followed nervously. Emma closed the door behind them. “Marian,” she said in a low voice. “I have an important task for you.”  
“Oh.”  
“It’s to do with finding Ms Kinney.”  
Marian’s eyes widened. “I can help?” She whispered.  
“We think you may be the key to finding out where she is,” said Emma. “It is true, is it not, that psychic defenses are quite useless against your primary mutation?”  
Marian nodded.  
“You see, I’ve been having quite a bit of difficulty getting into Magneto’s head,” Emma continued. “But, if you were to give me some help, I believe we could accomplish the task.”  
Marian paused. “When I… when I absorb someone,” she said cautiously. “It isn’t just their memories I get. He’d be inside my head. I don’t know if my mind would come out on top.”  
“I will help you, then,” Emma promised. “As, I’m sure, will our friends the Greys and your beloved Ms Braddock.”  
Marian nodded again. “I… will help,” she said, voice still quavering slightly. “Do you want me to do it now?”  
“As soon as possible,” Emma said. “We want your friend back soon.”  
“Alright.” Marian sucked in the air through her teeth. “Let’s go.”  
Emma smiled. “Elizabeth! Rachel!” She called. “The two of you will also be needed. The rest of you are welcome to come and observe.”  
The door opened, and six concerned faces peered out. “What do you need, Mz Frost?” Beth asked nervously.  
“Your help is required in locating Laura Kinney,” Emma explained. “I’ll tell you the rest on the way. Come along, children.”

_ Moira IX  
_ Logan and Robert sat on a bench at the centre of Tyr, facing the serene lake at the city’s centre. For almost an hour, neither spoke, just took in the sheen of moonlight reflected on the water’s surface. A family of ducks slept under a bush by the shore.  
Eventually, Logan spoke. “I talked to Kymera,” he said. “She doesn’t see much hope in this war anymore. She wants to leave.”  
Robert nodded. “So does North,” he said, voice still heavy with melancholy. “He hasn’t said anything, but if there were a way out of here… he would take it.”  
“Do you have any ideas?” Logan asked.  
Robert shrugged. “Maybe. It turns out that Earth was quarantined by an alien intelligence, the Archivists think the Kree, a few years ago. There’s no way in or out through space flight.”  
“But?”  
Robert took a shaky breath. “There may be a way to slip out of this dimension unnoticed. Some of the Archivists have been doing research relating to North’s powers.”  
“What’d they call it again? Void manipulation?”  
“Something like that. They think North may be able to access extraspatial and extratemporal reality. They called it No-Space. Or Nowhere.”

_ Moira X  
_ Marian knelt before Magneto, face creased with anxiety. The man just stared at her, his expression entirely blank. Marian glanced up at Emma, who gave her an encouraging smile. She took a deep breath.  
“You’ll do just fine,” Emma assured her. “We have your back.”  
Marian gulped. “Thanks,” she said in a small voice. “Is he, uhm. Is he definitely restrained?”  
“Yes,” Jean said. “And utterly powerless while in this room.”  
“Alright.” Marian pulled off her gloves, taking a shaky breath. “I’ve got this.”  
She reached for Magneto’s face, causing him to shrink back with a sneer. She flinched slightly, but hardened her resolve, and gently placed her palm on his cheek.  
The flood of thought and emotion was instant, and Marian cried out in shock as it flowed through her. She felt pain, rage, fear, and longing. A burst of memory sent her spiralling, and she found herself reeling at the presence of nearly ninety years worth of experiences. The man was far older than he looked.  
_ We have you, _ Emma’s voice echoed in the back of her mind.  _ Stay strong. Find Laura.  
_ Marian stared with her mind’s eye into the brilliant torrent of memory. She saw laughter, tears, pain, and guilt. She saw the face of the woman she had glimpsed briefly in the club, attached to a perplexing mixture of guilt and hatred. She pushed forward into the memory, opening her mind to Magneto’s experience.  
Erik stood on the dry earth of a vast meadow, watching as the cohort of jeeps pulled up to the small ring of trees before which he stood. He felt repulsed by the sight. Human modes of transport such as these would have to go, he decided. They were nasty, greasy things, which spoiled the clear air of this beautiful world. He was sure that he could easily find a faster and more environmentally friendly alternative, it was just that humans never seemed to want to look.  
The jeeps screeched to a halt. The door of the first one opened, and a woman jumped out. She swaggered over to Erik, displaying what Erik considered to be a quite vulgar level of cockiness. He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips as she approached, making his disdain clear, but this only seemed to accentuate her swagger and widen her smirk.  
“Magneto!” She greeted him. “My, oh my, to meet you in person? It’s a privilege.”  
“The privilege, Kimura, is that I have not annihilated you where you stand,” Erik spat. “I am here to conduct business. It is my full intention to one day kill you.”  
“And I look forward to that day!” Kimura laughed. “But that isn’t important. You said you had information on the whereabouts of a certain item that was stolen from me?”  
Erik sighed, and nodded. “One of the many advantages that my species has over yours is the natural occurrence of individuals with precognitive abilities,” he told her. “One of them has informed us that the girl is to be present at the Incense Nightclub in Edinburgh in two weeks, three days, five hours, and roughly twenty minutes.”  
“Hmm,” Kimura said, stroking her chin. “Interesting. Only problem is, I have absolutely no guarantee that that’s actually gonna happen. Also, you literally just threatened to kill me, which I’m not gonna take lightly. I’m gonna need collateral.”  
Erik nodded. “A fair demand. I have a child who I believe can be used for your purposes, much like the Wolverine’s daughter has been. He will also be present at the nightclub at that time, and should the girl evade capture, he is to be all yours.”  
“Done deal,” Kimura said. She extended a hand. “What are you getting out of all this, though?”  
“I just need to be able to track the X-Men,” Erik told her. He glanced back at the copse of trees briefly, and in that moment a brief thought about where he was flashed across his mind. He turned to Marian. “Get the fuck out of my head.”  
Marian snapped her hand away from Magneto’s face, screaming. “The prairies!” She yelled. “She’s in the prairies! In Canada! In the wilderness, miles from…” Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell into warm unconsciousness.

“We have an exact location,” Emma shouted, bursting into the council chamber. “Alberta. I can program the exact coordinates into the jet’s computer.”  
Logan shot to his feet, eyes wild. “When are we leaving?” He barked.  
“Slow down!” Moira urged, standing up. “The team is still recovering from capturing Magneto. We can’t afford to send everyone back out immediately.”  
“Well, I’m going!” Logan cried, pulling his jacket on. “I’ll bring Remy and Hank. They’re-”  
“We’re coming too!” Came a voice from the corridor. The council turned, stunned, to see four faces in the doorway.  
“No!” Moira snapped. “Absolutely not. You’re children!”  
“We’re old enough to kick ass!” Rachel retorted.  
“Old enough to help our friend,” Beth added.  
“Omega-Class enough to be useful!” Bobby shouted.  
Kitty shrugged. “She’s my best friend,” she said simply.  
“Decided, then,” Logan butted in before Moira could get any further words out. “I take Remy, Hank, and these four. We go in, get my daughter, and get out.”  
“Wait, Logan,” Moira said, already knowing it was hopeless. “They’ve had no formal combat training.”  
“Rachel, I’ve seen what you can do, just do more of it. Bobby, do not let your armour down. Beth, you can overload people’s brains, so just shout at them real loud. Kitty, stay phased until absolutely necessary. There, combat training. The four of you have had X-Men uniforms waiting in storage for two years now, so come on. We’ve got some bad guys to slaughter.”

Pietro shivered on the ground. His arms were covered in a patchwork of scars. His eyes were unfocused and wide open. His breathing was laboured and ragged. Kimura had hurled him back into the cell an hour ago, in which time he had said nothing to Laura, despite her coaxing. She had slammed fist against the door and screamed at the guards outside, demanding to know what had been done it him. She had been given no response, and so had returned to the laborious process of shakily slitting her wrist and rubbing the blood into the scars on Pietro’s arms, which had begun to fade. She sat beside him, quietly singing to him. For a while, this tactic had seemed as useless as the others, but after a time he stopped shivering and pushed himself a little closer to her. She patted his arm, and continued her song.  
Eventually, he began to hum along to the melody, and Laura sighed in relief. She sang for a while longer, allowing him to settle down. “Laura?” He asked when she finally stopped. She looked down at him.  
“Pietro?” She replied.  
“I don’t think the X-Men are coming.”  
Laura said nothing. She placed a hand on his head and rubbed his hair. He buried his face in her thigh, and tears wettened the ruined fabric.

“The plan is simple,” Logan explained as the jet sped across the Atlantic Ocean. “Gambit, Beast, and I will tackle them head on. You four keep your defences up and don’t make a move that could compromise your own safety.” Beth raised her hand. “Go for it.”  
“I can’t create very strong telekinetic wards,” she said sheepishly.  
“I can siphon off some of my own power and direct it to you,” Rachel said. “Just keep your mind linked to mine and you’ll be fine.”  
“Great plan,” Logan said. The corner of Rachel’s mouth curled upwards. “We take a systematic approach to things, that way we have the best chance of finding Laura. Rachel, Beth, I’m gonna need you two to keep active communication channels open. That gonna be an issue?”  
The two telepaths glanced at each other. “Uh,” Beth said sheepishly. “Probably.”  
“We’re not Jean and Emma,” Rachel added. “That kind of thing is a lot harder for us. Particularly without practice.”  
“Dammit.” Logan rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Well, try your damndest. Bobby, I want you with me. I’ve seen some of what my wife has been teaching you to do, and it’s impressive. Kitty, you’re on sneaking around with Remy. Hank’s guarding the exit. Beth and Rachel, do whatever feels the most useful.”  
“What does that even mean?” Beth asked, eyes wide.  
“I don’t know! Jean and Emma just do their own thing, and it’s usually useful!”  
“Go with Logan, but try and keep comms open with me!” Remy called from the pilot’s seat.  
“Yeah, that,” Logan said. “Ok. We’ve got a long ride. Try to get some sleep.”

Marian cracked her eyes open. Two faces swam above her. She shook her head to clear her vision, blinked, and the faces resolved themselves into Alex and Kurt. “Ugh,” she groaned. “Where’s Beth?.” She pushed herself up, finding herself to be on a sofa in the games room.  
Alex and Kurt glanced at her. “She’s… with Logan,” Kurt said slowly.  
Marian froze. “You mean… she’s getting Laura?”  
“Yep. So are the others.”  
“Oh my god.” Marian swung her legs off the sofa, to see three other kids watching her from the other sofa. “Oh. Hi, guys. Dani, and Chris, and I want to say… John?”  
“Jean-Paul, but close enough,” the pale Canadian boy said. “Oh. You knew that, didn’t you?”  
Chris patted his boyfriend on the back. “She’s just kidding, J,” he said softly, ruffling the feathers of his enormous brown wings. “We were just worried about you. Alex told us about what went down with Magneto.”  
Marian nodded, staring into the middle distance. “Marian?” Alex asked. “You ok?”  
“Fine,” Marian muttered. “Hey, do you three losers know how to play, like, I dunno, Monopoly?”  
“Obviously we do,” Dani said, looking a little taken aback.  
“Don’t act like we’re not the losers,” Kurt muttered to her.  
Marian rolled her eyes. “Whatever. We gotta do something until Beth gets back. Who wants to play?” She got up and wandered over to the cupboard. Behind her, she could catch tiny snippets of the mouthed conversation between Kurt and Alex. She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips.

Laura brushed the dirt from Pietro’s hair as he stirred. He had spent all night with his head in her lap, sleeping fitfully. She had dozed off a few times herself, but ultimately been too consumed with concern to stay asleep.  
“Pietro?” She whispered into the dark.  
“Laura?” Came the response.  
“Are you ready to talk about what happened?” Pietro was still for several seconds, but Laura felt him nodding. “In your own time.”  
“They… cut me open,” he said quietly. “There wasn’t much painkiller.”  
“There never is.”  
“Then they… they removed the bones from my arms.”  
Laura’s breath hitched. “They did something like that to me once,” she said soothingly, smoothing his hair.  
“Then, they… they made casts of my bones. And they poured some metal into them.” He curled up closer to her. “And then they… they… they put the metal bones back in.”  
Laura felt a tear drip from her nose. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “And they’re still in there?”  
He nodded slightly. “In my arms. I have metal bones now.”  
“Are they adamantium?”   
“How am I supposed to know?”   
Laura bowed her head. “That was a dumb question. I’m sorry.”  
A pounding was heard at the cell door. “Wait here, babe,” Laura whispered, gently laying Pietro’s head on the floor. She stood and slunk over to the door. “What do you want?” She hissed through the gap.  
“You two are coming with us,” the guard’s voice returned. The door was flung open, and Laura found herself staring down a gun barrel. “Emergency.”  
Laura made no reply, but held her hands out to be handcuffed. “Don’t resist,” she called over her shoulder. “You never know what they might try if you do.”  
“That’s what I want to hear,” the guard laughed, locking the cuffs around Laura’s wrists as a second pushed past them to deal with Pietro.  
“What’s the emergency?” He asked as he was forced to his feet.  
“None of your business,” the man snarled, kicking him in the shin. “Come with me.”  
Laura felt herself pushed away from the cell, and from the corner of her eye caught the other guard pushing Pietro in the other direction. “Wait,” she said, panicked. “Where are you taking him?”  
“Emergency,” the guard behind her grunted, shoving her forward. “We’re not sending the two of you to the same place.”  
“But-”  
Her arm was viciously twisted, and she cried out before she could finish her sentence. “You’re assets,” the man snarled. “We can’t afford to lose you both.”  
Pietro was far out of sight, and Laura found herself bewildered in the grimy corridors of the new Weapon X facility. “One day, I’m going to kill you,” she told the guard.  
“Not all too likely,” he laughed. “Kimura’s got the final stages all planned out. You and your boyfriend aren’t going to be keeping your minds much longer.”  
Laura could hear gunfire now. “That’s my dad, isn’t it?” She asked. The guard was silent. “I’d be terrified, if I were you. Do you know what happens to people who get on the Wolverine’s bad side?”  
“Shut up, X-23.”  
Laura smirked. She glanced round as they passed a side corridor, and had to stifle her astonishment when she saw Kitty creeping toward them, finger pressed to her lips. Laura very deliberately didn’t look at her, and the guard, not having Laura’s eyesight, didn’t spot her.   
“Besides,” the guard continued. “I don’t see how it matters if it  _ is _ your dad. Not as if he’s going to be able to find you.”  
“I don’t think he’ll need to,” Laura shrugged, just as Kitty grabbed the man from behind and turned him intangible. His hands passed right through Laura, and he cried out in astonishment and fear, only to be silenced as Kitty smacked him over the head with a police baton. He crumpled to the floor, where Kitty kicked him several times. She looked up at Laura.  
“You look like shit,” she said, trying very hard to keep the tears out of her voice and failing quite spectacularly. Her lower lip quivered. “Oh my god, Laura, we’ve missed you so much!” She threw her arms around her, her free hand phasing the handcuffs from Laura’s wrists. “I’ve missed you so so so so so much.”  
“You two, Kit,” Laura replied, hugging her friend. “This has been one long, shitty ass year.”  
Kitty pulled back. “A year? Laura, you’ve been here four months.”  
“Really? Wow. It felt so much longer, and it was so…” She pulled Kitty back in. “I need a hug right now.”  
“Maybe so, but we need to get back to Logan and Remy now, because they aren’t going to be able to hold security off forever.”  
“Ah. Yeah.” She separated from Kitty again. “See, we have to go get someone first.”  
“What? No, we need to go, now!”  
“We have to, Kitty!” She looked her friend in the eyes, trying to make her understand. “He’s Pietro Maximoff, the boy from the club. His dad, that’s Magneto, sold him to these people as compensation for trying to help me.”  
“We can come back for him when we have more X-Men, because Bobby and Rachel aren’t exactly having the easiest time of it up there!”   
“I love him, Kitty.”  
Kitty’s face shifted to pity. “Laura, this was not the place or the time to get a boyfriend.” She sighed. “But, fine. We’ll find Pietro Maximoff.” She kicked the guard once more for good measure.  
Laura jerked her head in the direction that she has seen Pietro dragged away to, and she set off in that direction, Kitty in tow. “You haven’t got any slower,” she puffed, the effort of keeping pace with Laura a little difficult. Laura’s eyes sparkled like they hadn’t in months.  
“I managed to keep in shape,” she said with a smirk. “Anything interesting happen while I was away?”  
“We all… cried a lot… and were pretty angry,” Kitty panted. “Turns out Bobby’s Omega-Class. Please, can you slow down?”  
“My boyfriend is in potentially mortal danger,” Laura reminded her as they whirled around a corner. “I’m already slower than I’d like.”  
“Stubborn as ever,” Kitty grumbled, and pushed forward.  
Laura paused briefly as they passed the operating room. Pietro had been tortured in there. Her nostrils flared, and she kept running.  
“What’s he like?” Kitty asked as Laura guessed at corridors and lead them to dead ends. “Anything like his Dad?”   
“I sure hope not.” Laura’s face softened a little. “He’s adorable. And sweet. He’s not had an easy life, even when held up to us. I love him.”  
“Pretty standard then,” Kitty teased, earning her a dirty look. “Oh, I’m sure he’s lovely. I won’t ask him too many probing questions, I promise.”  
Laura ignored her, and sniffed at the air. “Everything stinks of blood in here,” she muttered. “It’s impossible to pinpoint- ah!” Her pupils dilated. “I’ve got Kimura. He’ll be with her.”  
“I don’t know if that’s such a good-”  
“I don’t care. Come on!”  
Kitty sprinted after her.

“What the hell is taking her so long?” Logan snarled, pinning a guard to the wall and brutalising his face. “They should be back by now!”  
“Kitty says they need to find someone!” Rachel replied. “It’s hard to concentrate on the psychic connection, I’m sorry!”  
A bullet ricocheted off Logan’s skull, and he turned to the man who had fired it, nostrils flaring, only to watch in surprise as Bobby encased them in a coffin of ice. “Nice going, bud!” He called to him. “Hold down the fort, I’m going after Kitty!”  
“But what about us?” Beth shrieked.  
Logan glanced at the blade of shimmering psychic energy that extended from her clenched fist. “I think you kids are alright,” he said. “Don’t kill anyone without me!”

Laura raised her foot as she approached the door and smashed through it, bursting through into Kimura’s personal office. The room was bare, the walls barren, marked only by a desk and chair. Behind the desk was Kimura, holding a pistol to Pietro’s head.  
“Get out,” she snarled. “Go back to your oafish father and your family of freaks and you’ll never have to see me again.”  
Laura took a step into the room. Kimura cocked the pistol in response. “I’m not leaving without him,” she said, voice low and intense. “If you never want anything to do with me again, you’ll hand him over.”  
“I need him, or you, or both of you!” Kimura roared, voice wavering.  
“Then what are you doing with that gun?”  
“Laura, just go,” Pietro whispered.  
“Shut up!” Kimura snarled. “You’re not a person, X-24, you’re my property, and I’m not going to-” She froze completely. Her eyes widened, and she gurgled. Kitty stepped into view from behind her, clutching in one hand a lump of slimy flesh.  
“I…” she mumbled. “I just grabbed at something. I didn’t mean-”  
“That’s her heart, Kitty,” Laura said gently as Kimura slumped to the floor, Pietro wriggling out from under her corpse.  
Kitty stared in horror at the heart, then at Kimura’s body, then back to the heart. “I…” she whispered. “I… I-” She dropped the lump of muscle, and covered her mouth with a bloodstained hand. “I killed her…”  
A pounding of feet was heard from the corridor, and Logan appeared in the doorway. He took in the sights. Kitty knelt on the floor, tears dripping into a pool of blood around her knees. Pietro sat against the wall, knees tucked up to his chest. Laura turned to face him as he appeared, her dirty face streaked through with her own tears. “Hi, Dad,” she said quietly.  
Her ran over and hugged her, and she hugged him back, and before either of them knew it, Kitty and Pietro were hugging them too, and all four cried in relief and horror.

_ Ten hours and several showers later.  
_ Tentatively, Pietro placed his tray of food down next to Alex’s. The larger boy looked up and smiled at him. “Pietro, right?” He asked.  
“Yeah,” Pietro nodded, smiling. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”   
“Alex Summers,” he replied, taking Pietro’s hand and shaking it. He continued as Laura took her seat opposite her boyfriend. “That’s Beth, she’s the smart one. That’s Kurt, he’s the funny one. Next to him is Bobby, who thinks he’s the funny one.”  
“Hey!”  
“The one with the things that look like tattoos is Rachel, but those are natural facial markings. That’s Marian, she’s quiet. And you already know Kitty and Laura.”  
Pietro opened his mouth, and before he knew it he was deep in conversation with the table, laughing along with them and listening to their stories. Happiness was kindled in his belly, and for the first time in his life, he knew that he belonged.  
Marian laughed with the rest of them. She whispered to Beth and Bobby, who she was sitting next to, occasionally, but otherwise made no attempt at input. She decided she liked Pietro, even though the impressions of him she had received from Erik were overwhelmingly negative.  
Dinner ended. Beth asked if she was coming up, and she shook her head and told her that she wanted to go for a walk by herself. Beth nodded, kissed her on the shoulder, and left for her bed.   
Marian walked out into the village, hands stuffed into pockets for warmth. She kicked at a few loose stones by the sidewalk, making her way to the subway entrance. She ran her fingers over the chilly metal of the handrail as she descended into the skunkworks, clouds overhead replaced by concrete and LED lamps. She navigated the tunnels, ignoring the corridors to the hangar, Cerebro, and the council chamber. She found the gaol easily enough, and let herself in using the password that Emma didn’t know she had seen her use. The doors slid open, and she made her way to the only occupied cell. Erik sat cross legged on the floor, facing the bars. Marian mirrored him.  
“You have returned,” he said hollowly.  
“Yes,” she said.  
He looked up at her with tired eyes. “Why are you here, child?” He asked.  
Marian dropped her eyes, not meeting his gaze. “Because you’re right,” she whispered. “You’re _so_ right.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while longer to be uploaded, I have uni.


End file.
